State settles with former State Trooper

(Jefferson City)–A former Missouri state patrol trooper who was driving a boat when an Iowa man fell out and drowned has received the last payment of a financial settlement he reached with the state. The St. Louis Post Dispatch recently reported that Anthony Piercy in February accepted a $201,000 settlement of lawsuits he filed as he tried to get his job back. Piercy lost his law enforcement license after he pleaded guilty in 2017 to a misdemeanor boat violation in the 2014 death of 20-year-old Brandon Ellingson, of Clive, Iowa who drowned at the Lake of the Ozarks. 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 through the courts until the state agreed to the settlement to avoid giving Piercy his job back. In return for the settlement, Piercy agreed to not be reinstated as an officer.