EXCLUSIVE – Mark and Patricia McCloskey – two married St. Louis personal injury lawyers in their 60s who faced the "worst days of our lives" after they were slapped with felony charges by a Soros-backed district attorney for "defending" their home during the Black Lives Matter riots – spoke out to Fox News Digital about finally breaking free from restrictions on practicing law.
"The only unforgivable crime in America is standing up against the left," Mark McCloskey told Fox News Digital.
Mark said that he and his wife were victims of a "political persecut[ion]" by DA Kimberly Gardner over a July 2020 clash with BLM, which they continue to maintain was an act of self-defense.
After George Floyd's deadly encounter with police, pro-BLM rioters destroyed and burned businesses in St. Louis. Additionally, four police officers were shot and a retired police captain – David Dorn – was killed.
It was within the backdrop of the ongoing rioting that the St. Louis couple stood outside their homes, brandished weapons and waved them at BLM protesters who broke through an iron gate, ignored a "No Trespassing" sign, and screamed threats of arson and rape at them, the McCloskeys said. Protest leaders counter-claimed that the march was peaceful, and no threats were made.
"We knew that when we saw the video [of the clash with BLM]… that it was too big of an event for the left to avoid punishing us for it."
The McCloskeys were both charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon by DA Gardner, who is currently facing pressure to resign. In contrast, nine BLM protesters outside the McCloskey home were charged with misdemeanor trespassing, which prosecutors later dropped.
"In our case, we were [considered by Gardner] the worst criminals in St. Louis – despite the 262 murders we had in 2020 – by standing on our front porch and defending ourselves. We got to leapfrogged over 6,000 other cases, other serious felonies," Mark said.
Gardner then made a blunder on her campaign – she used the McCloskeys for fundraising, which caused her to lose the case from her roster over ethical concerns. A judge ruled Gardner "initiated a criminal prosecution for political purposes."
"Gardner is just as dumb as a sack of hammers," Mark said, referring to Gardner's campaign blunder.
After the McCloskeys guilty plea to misdemeanor charges, the Missouri Bar Association disciplinary council "decided that what we did in standing on our front porch defending ourselves was a crime of moral turpitude, that we were evil people and that we should not be allowed to practice law anymore."
The Missouri Bar requested the state's Supreme Court to suspend their licenses.
Missouri's Supreme Court suspended the McCloskeys’ law licenses in February 2022, only to later put them on probation for one year.
As of Feb. 9, Mark finished his community service hours, he reported to Fox News Digital. Patricia has nearly completed her service – she has a few more homework assignments.
"The good news for us is that we're self-employed. We don't owe anybody anything. There's nothing they can do to us. And they can try to cancel us all that they want to," Mark said. "But I'm going to be… saying the truth… But we anticipate that they will continue to try to find ways to make our lives miserable."
Mark and Patricia both support Gardner's removal from office as she faces pressure to resign, calling St. Louis a "war zone" under her watch. "The office is bizarrely, intentionally – in my opinion – [involved in] malpractice," Mark said.
"This is like they're two different nations. [There is a] nation of people that respect the Constitution and believe that individuals have a God given right to be free and self-determination and a duty to have self-respect and integrity. And [then the people who]… want to crush freedom and crush independence and create a single world socialist government."
"They're just disregarding crime," Mark said about Soros-backed district attorneys like Gardner.
"And because it helps them politically, they can take the position that they're counteracting generations of systemic racism and that putting people behind bars is White supremacist propaganda and that the laws are designed to oppress and not to and not for any other reason. And therefore to refuse to enforce the law is to the benefit of diversity, equity and inclusion."
"I absolutely do believe there's an intent to create chaos. It's not accidental. It's not incompetence [at prosecuting crime]," Mark said about Gardner's soft-on-crime policies.
"Because out of chaos comes tyranny. You demoralize people, you give them an environment of chaos, lawlessness, poverty and uncertainty. And what do they do? They ask somebody else to fix their problems, they ask the government to come in and provide a solution. And that's what all this is about. And it's not just happening in St. Louis, but in every major city."
Fox News' Danielle Wallace, Louis Casiano, Lawrence Richard, Paul Best contributed to this report.
