BRIDGETON, Mo. – A politician and lawyer who we’ve exposed in months of investigations on FOX 2 has lost his Missouri law license.
Andrew Purcell has avoided us for months, beginning with our first report in April 2022 that he was representing Bridgeton as a politician while living 140 miles away in Carterville, Illinois.
He said he had no comment when we confronted him about that abnormality.
Purcell was forced to comment, however, to the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office after being charged with a crime. Purcell was sentenced in June 2023 to a misdemeanor of stealing without consent. That led to the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision to pull his law license.
Purcell did not answer his cellphone or respond to a voicemail asking for a comment about the action.
In his court fight to keep his Missouri law license, however, Purcell’s attorney argued that Purcell attended 74% of all council meetings during his four years with Bridgeton. He also argued that Purcell’s plea deal was for a misdemeanor, a conviction that is not “…serious criminal conduct, a necessary element which involves misrepresentation or fraud.”
At issue in the criminal case was about $6,000 in government pay Purcell received as a Bridgeton councilman after he’d moved to Illinois.
Purcell had no comment again when we asked him after a June 2022 court hearing, “You posted on Facebook in April that you were going to repay taxpayers. Have you followed through?”
He did provide a cashier’s check for restitution to the court at his guilty plea this past June. The Missouri Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel determined that Purcell’s conviction should also him his law license.
His most recent law history is in Illinois, where he was hired as a prosecutor in Williamson County, working from February 2021 to April 2022. He was then hired in Union County, where he worked for just three days before resigning in April 2022, on the very day we first confronted him.
Purcell may also lose his law license in Illinois, where Attorney Disciplinary Commission records indicate he’s “inactive and not authorized to practice law,” as the Commission considers a more permanent action in that state, too.
