Joe Morrissey : A controversial lawmaker who served time in prison for a teen sex scandal has been elected to the Virginia State Senate.
After a rough route packed with controversies that would normally derail most politicians’ careers, Democrat Joe Morrissey won the senate seat for Virginia’s 16th District on Election Night.
Morrissey’s unusual political journey has included an adolescent sex scandal, jail time, disbarment, and allegations of inappropriate behaviour with a client. Despite this, he garnered more than 60% of the vote, according to WSET.
Morrissey hired 17-year-old Myrna Pride to work as an intern in his law firm in 2013, when he was 56 years old and a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. Despite prosecutors having numerous of their purported texts and sexting proof, they initiated a sexual relationship that they both denied.
Morrissey brags to a friend in all-caps about having sex with Pride on a conference room table, “AND THEN ON THE FLOOR FOR GOOD MEASURE!”
Pride, on the other hand, had contacted a close friend about the alleged sexual encounter, concerned that they had not used protection. According to the graphic texts disclosed in the plea deal, Morrissey paid her $70 for a morning after pill.
When “a person has consenting sexual intercourse with an individual under the age of 18,” Virginia’s statutory rape law is broken.
In 2014, Morrissey was allowed to plead guilty to delinquency of a juvenile, as well as indecent liberties with a minor, possession and distribution of child pornography, and electronic solicitation of a minor.
Pride was already expecting their first child at the time of his conviction. He was imprisoned for three months.
Morrissey resigned his seat in December 2014, but stood for re-election in a special election to fill the vacancy he created. While incarcerated, he won that election in January 2015, recovering his position in the Virginia House of Delegates.
In 2016, a Henrico County court permitted a woman who had previously been represented by Morrissey’s law firm to withdraw a guilty plea after she claimed Morrissey had pressed her for sex.
Morrissey exposed himself to Kanika Shani Morris, 35, in his law office and proceeded to make approaches through text messages, according to the Richmond-Times Dispatch, who were allowed access to the texts.
Morrissey described the communications as “flirtatious,” despite the fact that they were sexually explicit.
Morrissey was no stranger to breaking the law as an attorney. Ten times he was cited for contempt of court, five times he was detained or arrested, and twice his legal licence was suspended.
The Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board revoked his law licence in 2003, citing “frequent episodes of unethical, contumacious, or otherwise inappropriate conduct mar Joseph D. Morrissey’s career as a prosecutor and private defence attorney,” according to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
A petition for Morrissey’s readmission to the bar was allowed by the Virginia Supreme Court eight years later.
That lasted seven years, until the Virginia State Bar revoked his law licence again in 2018 because of his felony record and improper contact with his intern, Pride, whom he married after their second child together.
The couple has a 40-year age gap between them. Morrissey has six children from four different women, therefore they currently have three children.
Morrissey’s victory, which earned him the nickname “Fighting Joe,” is part of a larger success for Democrats, who will now have a majority in both the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate for the first time in almost 25 years.
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