Year-End Review: Drunk Driving, Parking, and a Lawsuit

MADD:  Instead of honoring various police officers from around the area for locking up drunk drivers I think it is time for Mothers Against Drunk Drivers to start spending more time monitoring the local courts and being vocal when they find judges and prosecutors failing to actually convict people of drunk driving.

Local judges and prosecutors are well known for giving themselves pats on the back claiming almost perfect conviction rates. In reality they hand out “no record” probation terms and reduce serious moving violations to defective equipment or illegal parking so drunk drivers end up with no points and no public record of drunk driving.

Dan McLaughlin: The Cardinal television broadcaster lives in Town and Country, the city with the highest DWI arrest record in the metro area. You would think that McLaughlin would get arrested in Town and Country once in a while for DWI. Instead in the last two years he has been arrested for DWI in Chesterfield. McLaughlin wasn’t a little bit drunk either.

In 2010 he was falling down drunk, according to the police report appeared to have urinated in his pants, tried to bribe the arresting officer and refused to take a breath test.

In 2011 McLaughlin was so drunk he disabled his vehicle after hitting three fixed objects. He was again falling down drunk, was unable to figure out how to unlock his door and get out of his SUV, handed the officer a passport instead of his driver’s license, was unable to dial a telephone to call his brother, who is his lawyer and again refused to take a breath test.        

Perhaps McLaughlin should make a New Year’s Resolution to stay out of Chesterfield.  

Judge Brunk: The Chesterfield city judge refused to revoke McLaughlin’s first probation for DWI after his second arrest. In fact Judge Brunk went out of his way to be sure the McLaughlin’s license would only be suspended for 30 days and not revoked for a year by putting him on three different probations so he would not accumulate the points he so rightfully deserves on his driver’s license.

In the interest of protecting the citizens of Chesterfield it is clearly time for the City Council to revoke the Municipal Court’s slap on the wrist of drunk drivers and replace the prosecutor and judge.

LAWSUIT DROPPED: Back on May 9, I wrote about Brian Marchant-Calsyn, who after he was evicted from an office in Town and Country.

One of Marchant-Calsyn’s companies was Health Career Agents, which claimed to be able to put you in the money by working from home recruiting health care professionals for hospitals. There have been a number of judgments totaling $175,000 against Marchant-Calsyn and Health Career Agents in the Circuit Court after the findings of fraud.

It seems that Marchant-Calsyn failed to mention to potential investors that he was a convicted felon, having served time in a Federal prison for drug distribution. He had a different name in prison and changed his name in 2001 by adding his wife’s maiden name to his.

Larry White of Michigan claims to have lost $49,000 to Health Career Agents. White set up websites adding the word “sucks” to the name of Marchant- Calsyn’s internet companies. His websites listed everything White could find on the internet and in public records that was not favorable of Marchant-Calsyn. Some of the information came from Marchant-Calsyn’s own blogs and websites.  

Marchant-Calysn sued White claiming defamation, injurious falsehood, tortious interference with a business expectancy, tortious false light, invasion of privacy and tortious intrusion on seclusion.  

White hired Richmond Heights lawyer, Chet Pleban, who first moved the case from the County Circuit Court to Federal Court. Over the next few months depositions were taken. Pleban, based on the information in the depositions made a motion to dismiss the case for lack of evidence. In early September just a couple of days before the hearing, Marchant-Calsyn dropped his suit. The cost of the defense to White was $21,000.  

In September, there was a front page article in the Post-Dispatch about Marchant-Calsyn’s companies and some of the people who are out of large amounts of money. The companies are no longer operated out of a Chesterfield office. Marchant-Calsyn now uses a mailbox at the UPS Store in Manchester as the address for his companies. The $175,000 judgments according to court records have not been paid. To date Marchant-Calsyn has not sued the Post-Dispatch or Patch.

OCCUPY ST. LOUIS: I really have to wonder why the Occupy St. Louis people were not ahead of this. If only they would have put up better Christmas decorations than what Macy’s puts up in Kiener Plaza, they would probably still be there.   

PARKING: In March I wrote how my wife went to the Habitat for Humanity store on Forest Park Blvd. She parked on a gravel lot behind the store she thought was part of the store. There were no signs of any kind prohibiting parking. She was   She appealed bringing photos showing no signs and a definition from Black’s Law Dictionary that claimed gravel on dirt was an improvement. She lost.

I was not surprised to read in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the parking ticket issued to Valerie Clairday who was cited for parking on Compton Avenue during prohibited times, 25 days before the signs went up. Clairday works part-time at the Chaifetz Arena. She appealed her case and lost. She didn’t have the $187 handy to appeal the $25 parking ticket to the Circuit Court.

The hearing commissioner who ruled against Ms. Clairday that the parking ticket issued 25 days before they put up the prohibiting parking from 6pm to 12 midnight on Compton  was the same person who found my wife should have known that you could not park on a  gravel parking lot where there were no signs posted.

He is Mr. William Douthit, who lives off of Clayton Road in Town and Country. I am guessing the mayor can’t find any St. Louis residents willing to hand down these ridiculous rulings and imports Mr. Douthit from Town and Country.   

Apparently, the mayor believes parking tickets create more revenue than people like me and my wife paying sales taxes and the workers like Clairday paying earnings taxes. 

SUGAR PLUM FAIRY: I have to admit I was sorry there was not a surprise ending to the St. Charles Sugarplum Fairy caper. Laura Coppinger, who had played the Sugarplum Fairy in the Old St. Charles shopping district Christmas events was fired after swearing when she was told she had to give a second urine sample after she flushed the toilet upon finishing putting her first sample in a cup and the leftovers in the toilet.

I was sure that the mayor St. Charles was smarter than most gave her credit. After this huge amount of free publicity, I was certain she would have Coppinger apologize and get her job back. Then the mayor could sit back and watch the streets fill with people who don’t normally come to St. Charles just to see the Sugarplum Fairy, spend money and pay local sales taxes.

I am sorry to report that apparently was not the case.