ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office announced six new additions Monday evening to help the office with its remaining backlog of cases.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore's office announced a new special assistant circuit attorney and five full-time assistant circuit attorneys. The office has made 14 key hires since Gore assumed office on May 30.
The new special assistant is Gordon Ankney, a senior counsel at Thompson Coburn LLP. According to his bio, Ankney is an experienced trial attorney in cases involving "commercial disputes, white collar criminal defense, products liability, environmental law, employment matters, antitrust claims, and a variety of other matters."
As a special assistant, Ankney will retain his job at Thompson Coburn LLP and provide pro bono hours prosecuting cases for the Circuit Attorney's Office.
The announcement also listed five new assistant circuit attorneys that will be full-time employees of the office: Lopa Blumenthal, Tanja Engelhardt, Jeff Jamieson, Grant Simon and Jessica Vestal.
“We will keep the St. Louis Circuit Court courtrooms busy," Gore said in a news release. "These experienced attorneys have the skills to prosecute our most serious violent felonies. We are adding the attorneys necessary to aggressively prosecute violent criminals and make the St. Louis community safer.”
Gore replaced Kim Gardner, who abruptly resigned on May 16 after public scrutiny of her administration mounted. When Gore took office, more than 250 homicides and more than 3,000 additional felonies were pending, according to the press release. When Gardner left, only one prosecutor was left to handle more than 500 serious felony cases.
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