Ferguson municipal court judge Ronald Brockmeyer is the guy who tossed residents in jail for owing fines on trumped up charges like walking in a way police didn't like, or having taillights that were burned out when they weren't.

All the time he was doing that, he was also deep in arrears on his own taxes. Funny how he was able to skirt jail time while presumably making payments.

The Guardian:

While Brockmeyer owes the US government $172,646 in taxes, his court in Ferguson is at the centre of a class-action federal lawsuit that alleges Ferguson repeatedly “imprisoned a human being solely because the person could not afford to make a monetary payment”.

This is the same guy who got a speeding ticket and reached out to his pals in the court clerk's office to fix it, by the way. From the DoJ report:

In October 2013, Judge Brockmeyer sent Ferguson’s Prosecuting Attorney an email with the subject line “City of Hazelwood vs. Ronald Brockmeyer.” The Judge wrote: “Pursuant to our conversation, attached please find the red light camera ticket received by the undersigned. I would appreciate it if you would please see to it that this ticket is dismissed.” The Prosecuting Attorney, who also serves as prosecuting attorney in Hazelwood, responded: “I worked on red light matters today and dismissed the ticket that you sent over. Since I entered that into the system today, you may or may not get a second notice – you can just ignore that.”

Shaun King has more to say about him:

Brockmeyer, who still practices as a defense attorney, is:

—Lead Prosecutor for Florissant
—Municipal Prosecutor for Vinita Park
—Municipal Prosecutor for Dellwood
—Municipal Judge for Ferguson
—Municipal Judge for Breckenridge Hills

In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find one single person who is making more money in more ways off of violating the constitutional rights of African Americans in and around St. Louis than Brockmeyer. It's likely that he is used in and around all of these towns for the very reason that he so harshly judges and prosecutes African Americans for the single reason of boosting revenues for these local governments. He gets the job done.

And yet he can't manage to pay his taxes. Yeah, that's some real justice for you right there.

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