JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - A former Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper who was driving a boat when a handcuffed Iowa man fell out and drowned has received the final payment of a legal settlement he reached with state officials.
In February, Anthony Piercy accepted a $201,000 settlement of lawsuits he filed against the patrol, the Department of Public Safety and the department’s director. In exchange, he agreed to stop efforts to have his law enforcement license returned and to get his job back.
He received $126,000 from the patrol in January and records released Monday show he was paid $75,000 in February, ending the state’s obligation to the settlement, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Piercy lost his law enforcement license after he pleaded guilty in 2017 to a misdemeanor boat violation in the death of Brandon Ellingson, 20, of Clive, Iowa.
Piercy arrested Ellingsen in 2014 at the Lake of the Ozarks and was taking him in by boat when Ellingsen fell out. He was handcuffed and slipped out of an improperly secured life vest.
Piercy’s lawsuit to be reinstated wound though the courts until the state agreed to the settlement to avoid giving Piercy his job back.
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