Ex-trooper in Lake of the Ozarks drowning is paid $200K, ends fight to get job back
A former Missouri Highway Patrol trooper involved in the 2014 drowning of a handcuffed Iowa man ended his fight to get his job back after the state agreed to pay him more than $200,000.
Attorneys for Anthony Piercy filed motions last week to dismiss his pending court cases regarding his old job and the revocation of his license to be a peace officer in Missouri. Those came after the state agreed to give him back pay, benefits and other money for him to stop his legal fight.
In the end, Piercy — who was fired in December 2017 for his actions the day Brandon Ellingson died — walked away with $201,217, according to the Missouri Attorney General’s office.
As a result of that settlement, Piercy dismissed all of his cases against the state. He is prohibited from ever again working as a peace officer in the state of Missouri.
Craig Ellingson, Brandon’s father, has fought since 2014 for justice and to reveal what he calls a cover up by the state of Missouri in his son’s death. Ellingson has attended hearings for years and with his family in 2016 settled a civil lawsuit with the state for $9 million.
It’s unfair, Ellingson said this week, that Piercy gets a hefty check.
“If that was somebody else, they wouldn’t get paid,” Ellingson told The Star. “It’s like he’s getting rewarded for killing Brandon.”
A call Friday night to Piercy’s attorney, Timothy Van Ronzelen, was not returned. Neither was an email Monday.
The highway patrol referred all calls for comment to the Attorney General’s office.
An electronic employee pay portal shows that Piercy, listed as a Trooper 1st Class, received $126,217 on January 31. The day before, Piercy’s attorney was scheduled to update the court on the case.
That pay from the patrol covered back pay and benefits from roughly Sep. 2017 to June 2018, the attorney general’s office said. The additional $75,000 came from the state’s Legal Expense Fund, which is used to pay settlements.
Drowning in handcuffs
Piercy pulled over Brandon Ellingson, a 20-year-old college student, on May 31, 2014, on suspicion of boating while intoxicated on the Lake of the Ozarks. During the stop, Piercy handcuffed the Iowa man’s hands behind his back.
Witnesses told authorities that the trooper put an already-buckled life vest — the wrong one for a handcuffed person — over Ellingson’s head.
On the way to a field office for more testing, Piercy traveled at speeds up to 46 mph. At one point, after the boat hit a wave, Ellingson was ejected. His improperly secured life vest soon came off. Piercy eventually jumped into the lake to try to save him but couldn’t.
Though a coroner’s inquest ruled Ellingson’s death an accident in September 2014, a special prosecutor charged Piercy with involuntary manslaughter in December 2015 and the patrol put the trooper on leave without pay. Piercy later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
After Piercy was sentenced for misdemeanor negligent operation of a vessel in September 2017, Ellingson pushed for Piercy to lose his Peace Officer Standards and Training license for life. Ellingson said he didn’t believe 10 days in the county jail, two years of supervised probation and 50 hours of community service were enough punishment for the trooper.
After Piercy lost his job with the patrol, a Cole County judge ruled in 2018 that the patrol’s leader at the time overreached her authority when she fired the trooper. Once his license had been revoked, though, it was a moot point. All officers must carry a POST license to be employed as an officer or trooper.
But after the court ruling about his firing, Piercy kept fighting in court. Until now.
Craig Ellingson said his goal has been to keep Piercy from ever being a law enforcement officer in Missouri again. That much, he said, he has accomplished.
But seeing the former trooper walk away with thousands of dollars, he said, is rough.
“To me, it’s totally unbelievable,” Ellingson said. “It’s a good ole’ boy thing.”
