Versailles, MO — Nearly two years after Trooper Anthony Piercy was charged in the death of Brandon Ellingson, who drowned in the Lake of the Ozarks with his hands cuffed behind his back, the case was closed. Predictably, the offending officer got off with less than a slap on the wrist—just 10 days in jail and 50 hours of community service.
For handcuffing a college student, negligently casting him into a lake, and watching as he drowned, Trooper Piercy avoided an involuntary manslaughter trial after he pleaded guilty to a simple boating violation in June of 2017.
Last year, Piercy was sentenced for his role in Ellingson’s death and he received just 10 days in jail and 50 hours of community service. The judge referred to this insultingly low sentence of only 10 days as “shock time.”
To Ellingson family and those who’ve been following this case, it was a kick in the teeth.
“Ten days is like a vacation,” Craig Ellingson said. “It’s a joke. … He knows he’s guilty and he’s damn lucky to get what he got.”
That kick in the teeth has become far worse now, however, as the family has just found out that this killer cop’s “community service” was spent working in a community theater—of which he was a part of before he killed their son.
As the Star reported at the time, Special Prosecutor William Camm Seay requested Piercy receive 30 days in jail and have his law enforcement certification revoked for life. But that did not happen.
“I wished we would have gotten what we asked for,” Seay told The Star after the hearing, and now he’s speaking out again.
According to the Star, records show that Piercy helped create the set of the musical “Moses and the Burning Within” for the Royal Theatre in Versailles, Mo. He did some acting. And the trooper who had dabbled in the town’s community theater before Ellingson’s death also helped tear down the set after the musical’s run.
“I thought it was a joke,” said Craig Ellingson, whose 20-year-old son died nearly four years ago in Piercy’s custody at the Lake of the Ozarks. “He had been in plays before, that was his hobby. That would be like me working at my company for community service. … Basically, it was a picnic for him.”
Cop Who Threw Handcuffed Man Into Lake and Watched Him Drown, Sentenced to Act in a Musical
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