The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has been accused by Ferguson protestors of playing “stenographer” for police in the region, and it’s a matter of public record that the paper helped remove Charlie Dooley from the county executive seat and replace him with Steve Stenger through a relentless battery of news reports and editorials based on anonymous allegations of corruption in the Dooley administration.
Well, this past week the Post was not playing stenographer for St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar, and it was Stenger, not Dooley, looking corrupt in the paper’s news and editorial holes.
In a sense, the Post did play stenographer for Belmar and Stenger, in the sense that the paper simply reported what they said, or wrote, but the paper reported things these powerful men said that they most certainly would have preferred to remain hidden from public view.
The Post unearthed and published previously sealed letters to a district judge that Belmar and Stenger wrote on behalf of Michael Saracino II. He was sentenced in December to 24 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession and intent to distribute more than 1,000 kilos of marijuana. “He had been arrested in 2014 as part of a federal and local drug sting in a massive drug dealing operation that included airplanes and spanned several states,” Tony Messenger wrote in a ruthless opinion column that followed on the news report by Christine Byers and Robert Patrick. “Evidence in the cases included at least one firebombing, beatings and a kidnapping.”
Saracino got a break in sentencing from U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry, compared to what the prosecutor requested and federal sentencing guidelines. In letting Saracino off relatively easily, she was only doing what the county’s chief executive requested.
“Based on my experience with Michael and his family, I respectfully request that you grant him leniency in your sentencing for the crimes he has committed,” Stenger wrote to the court. Though he did not use official stationary, he did use his office address. His name and office address should be a sure giveaway to the judge that this was the county executive asking for leniency for the confessed drug dealer.
Stenger said he met Saracino when the young man served him at one of his family’s restaurants. “He provides excellent service to all of his customers,” Stenger wrote to the judge, as if penning a Yelp review rather than an appeal for leniency.
Ah, but it was Stenger who was providing excellent service to a former customer. Though he did not disclose this past client relationship to the judge, the Post sifted through court records and found that Stenger represented Saracino when he pleaded guilty to refusing to take a breath test during a traffic stop in 2012.
(The Post also noted that Saracino has charges pending on a 2013 arrest for money laundering after he was arrested at a casino with $26,870 in cash. “He told investigators it was from restaurant wages and tips,” the Post reported. This bonanza of tips would back up Stenger’s claim that Saracino “provides excellent service” at the dining table.)
Belmar does not come right out and ask for leniency, but the fact that he is the police chief – writing to the court on police chief letterhead – presumably lends force to his gentler nudge. Belmar writes to offer “humble insight” to the Saracino family’s support for their young felon. Belmar referred to them as an “honorable” family, presumably not intending the allusion to William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” where noble cutthroats are praised as “honorable men.” Belmar suggests to the court that the family, not the state, can handle Saracino’s punishment and rehabilitation, saying the family will “provide the right type of support, and demand accountability from him.”
About that family: the “excellent waiter” and drug dealer is the nephew of John Saracino, who was a member of the St. Louis County Board of Police Commissioners – and, as such, one of Belmar’s bosses. John Saracino resigned from the police board to accept a spot in Stenger’s cabinet (after the Post helped get him elected county executive) as director of constituent services. See, constituent services! Excellent service must run in this family. John Saracino was drawing down $130,000 a year from the county for his excellent service, until the Post’s coverage of the leniency letters forced his resignation.
(The Post does not make this connection, but another Saracino uncle, Bartholomew Saracino, previously served on the St. Louis city police board, when it was under state control, along with Mayor Francis G. Slay. Bart Saracino and Mayor Slay were the bosses of St. Louis Police Chief Joe Mokwa. Remember him? Clean as a whistle, that copper. Wasn’t he?)
The American contacted spokespersons for Belmar and Stenger to see if they would speak to us about the Post’s report. Belmar declined through his spokesman. Neither of Stenger’s communications operatives provided the dignity of a response, even though both – Cordell Whitlock and Allison Blood – are former journalists.
Whitlock did answer a request to see if another former journalist, Paul Hampel, still works for the County (yes) and if so at what salary ($77,500). Hampel fits into this story about “excellent service,” who provides that service, and who gets paid for it.
Hampel was a veteran reporter at the Post-Dispatch who covered St. Louis County government when the Post got started on its years-long jeremiad against the Dooley administration. Hampel reported on Dooley when corruption fever was raging among St. Louis federal investigators and prosecutors. A series of elected officials – state Senator Jeff Smith, his accomplice state Rep. Steve Brown and state Rep. T.D. El-Amin – all were forced to resign from office (and Smith and El-Amin reported to prison) after being caught red-handed committing crimes.
Smith and Brown obstructed a federal investigation into a past campaign reporting impropriety that Smith lied about under oath, and El-Amin extorted a bribe from a gas station owner. This string of high-profile busts had everyone casting rumors about who was next. In this climate, the Post gave Hampel a front page spot in October 2009 for a story where anonymous sources claimed that corruption in St. Louis County went “all the way to the top.”
That story tried to connect alleged corruption in the Dooley administration to one of his staffers resigning in the wake of personal tax issues. Hampel’s sourcing for Dooley’s alleged corruption was no tighter than “unconfirmed rumors” or “whispers swirling through county government headquarters.”
At the time, The American questioned Post Deputy Metro Editor Alan Achkar about running a front-page news piece alleging criminal corruption with no tighter sourcing than “rumors” or “whispers.” Akbar said he justified the Post’s editorial decision “in the context, the atmosphere, the environment” of recent corruption convictions and ongoing corruption probes.
Achkar, predictably, refused to divulge Hampel’s anonymous sources for these swirling whispers. At the time, Stenger was a County councilman and frequent scourge of Dooley in news and political stories. When Stenger challenged Dooley for county executive, the EYE suspected that Stenger had been Hampel’s deep throat for those swirling whispers of corruption.
This suspicion became strengthened after Stenger paid a visit to The American for an editorial board visit. Though Dooley was the County’s first black chief executive, Stenger – a white man from South County – actually requested an editorial board meeting with us before Dooley did, and the EYE gave Stenger a fair hearing and reported a neutral story where he made a case for his candidacy. Stenger followed up by asking the paper’s managing editor to lunch, and during lunch Stenger went on and off the record. His accusations of corruption in the Dooley administration were shared off the record. This routine was perfectly consistent with Stenger appearing on the record in some Post reports about Dooley, while being an anonymous source when criminal corruption was alleged.
All of this came back to mind when Hampel resigned from the Post and accepted a vague “Special Projects” post with the Stenger administration (he is now called “policy advisor,” per Whitlock). The EYE wondered if Hampel was being repaid for his previous “excellent service” as a journalist, pushing Stenger’s anonymous allegations of corruption past his editors and onto the front page.
After Stenger hired Hampel, The American approached Post editor Gilbert Bailon to ask if he had conducted an internal review to see if Stenger was one of Hampel’s anonymous sources for allegations of Dooley’s corruption – for which Dooley was never interviewed by investigators, let alone charged. Bailon’s response: “We don’t divulge the identity of any anonymous sources.”
Hampel and Stenger have never responded to requests to discuss their past relationship as journalist and source.
Back to the Post of today: The report on Belmar and Stenger’s letters was excellent public service journalism – truly, in this case, “excellent service” – but the protestors’ claim that the Post’s news reporters are “police stenographers” does still ring true, in part. The Post’s report on the leniency letters is framed from the point of view of the police union. Gabe Crocker, County police union rep, is the first named source in the story, and the County coppers are the heroes in the headline.
Interestingly, Stenger blamed the story on Crocker, claiming the copper was exacting payback for being denied one of the Stenger administration hookups that Saracino and Hampel landed. The Post reported that Stenger accused Crocker of merely “having an ax to grind” for being turned down for a job in his administration.
