Infamous Virginia Politician who Served Time for Relationship with Minor on Cusp on Being Elected
It’s been a rough year for the Democratic Party in Virginia. The last thing we need is for every Democratic candidate in Virginia to have to answer for why their party is supporting a man who is known for starting a relationship with an underage employee, sexual harassment scandals, and being repeatedly disbarred.
That man’s name is Joe Morrissey, and he is running against sitting Democratic State Senator Rosalyn Dance in the Richmond/Petersburg area. In addition to his numerous legal troubles, flip-flopping on the issues, and inappropriate behavior, he may also be currently violating campaign finance laws. Since no Republican is running in the district in November, the only way to stop this man from being elected is to vote against him on Tuesday (6/11) in the Democratic Primary.
A History of Unethical Behavior, Arrests, and Dishonesty
Morrissey’s early career as a lawyer was marred in controversy, arrests, fines, and losing his license to practice law. He has been found in contempt of court no less than ten times, reprimanded publicly by the Virginia State Bar, and had his license suspended twice. He was disbarred in 2003, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit stated:
“Frequent episodes of unethical, contumacious, or otherwise inappropriate conduct mar Joseph D. Morrissey’s career as prosecutor and private defense attorney… Evidence demonstrates Morrissey’s 15-year history of contempt citations, reprimands, fines, suspensions, and even incarcerations arising from unprofessional conduct mostly involving an uncontrollable temper, inappropriate responses to stress and dishonesty”
Morrissey then lived in Australia for a time, where he managed to attract even more controversy and was fired from several jobs. He was fired from the University of Western Sydney for hiding the fact that he had been disbarred. He then taught at a high school for a semester, before being fired from that job for unknown reasons. Finally, Morrissey attempted to get licensed to practice law in New South Wales (Australia), but was found “not a fit and proper person to be admitted as a legal practitioner” by the Bar Association.
“The Big Scandal”
Of course, many of you reading probably know Joe Morrissey from another, more recent scandal.
In 2013 police discovered Joe Morrissey in his home with an underage girl who worked for him. The police had been called there by the girl’s father, who feared that they were engaged in an inappropriate relationship. He was 55 years old and in a long-term relationship at the time, with two kids by that woman. Although Joe and the girl in question denied that there was any sexual relationship, a grand jury was formed to assess whether an illegal relationship had taken place.
Authorities soon discovered that Morrissey had nude photos of the girl on his phone, which were sent to an adult friend of his. He claimed that he had been “hacked” and the photo placed on his phone by some other person.
In the Summer of 2014, Morrissey was indicted for taking indecent liberties with a minor, possession and distribution of child pornography, and electronic solicitation of a minor — all felony charges. He also faced misdemeanor contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
The evidence was damning. In addition to the photos, prosecutors found over 80 text messages, some very explicit, from Morrissey’s phone to the girl and his adult friend.
One text to her said “did I mention how much I like touching your body… I think I’ve explored most of it but I need a few more hours to make sure!”, while one to his friend bragged “Hey, buddy, I just fucked her on my conference table and again on the floor for good measure”. He maintains that these were sent by someone who hacked his phone.
In a shocking miscarriage of justice, Morrissey was allowed to enter an Alford Plea. An Alford Plea is an admission that there is enough evidence to find Morrissey guilty, but maintains that he is innocent. Normally an Alford plea is not accepted — after all he just admitted that there is enough evidence to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. However, Joe Morrissey is powerful, wealthy, white, and has a degree in law.
His plea was accepted, and he only served time for the misdemeanor charge of “contributing to the delinquency of a minor”. He served three months in jail out of a six month sentence, and was allowed day release to go to his job in the House of Delegates. It probably helped that, as a Delegate, he got to vote on giving the judge his position.
Somehow I doubt a poor person, a person of color, someone without political connections, or a person without a legal background would have gotten such a mild slap on the wrist. Most people would have been put on a list.
Aftermath
After his conviction almost every leader in the Democratic Party of Virginia, including Governor McAuliffe, called on Morrissey to resign. He did resign, but then ran, from jail, in the special election to replace himself. Since he was essentially forced out of the Democratic Party, he ran as an independent against a Democrat and a Republican. He managed to win that election by less than 600 votes.
A week later a special prosecutor found evidence that Morrissey had committed perjury and presented forged documents during his sentencing hearing. New felony indictments followed.
A couple months later, in March 2015, the girl Morrissey had been with in his home (now an adult) gave birth. Morrissey denied paternity for the next two months, before finally admitting the baby was his. The 18 year old woman and Morrissey married shortly thereafter. Although this was Morrissey’s first marriage, he has fathered five children by four different women over the years.
In March of 2015, a mere two months after taking office in the House of Delegates, Morrissey filed to run for State Senate against Democrat Rosalyn Dance. This disqualified him from being a Delegate, since the Senate district was outside of his House of Delegates District. So much for serving the constituents who had just elected him!
Morrissey dropped out of that race due to unspecified health concerns, although he then ran for mayor of Richmond in 2016.
Sexually Harassing a Client, and Attempting to Cheat on his Wife
Joe made it about a year before attempting to cheat on his wife with at least one other woman. This time, he added a whole new level of creepiness and manipulation to his advances.
In October, 2016 the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Huffington Post reported that one of Morrissey’s clients had come forward accusing him of sexual harassment. The Times-Dispatch received texts from the woman where he requested that she shave her genitals and “wear fresh panties” before seeing him in his office. She also accused him of exposing his genitals in front of her. When she resisted these advances, she says he retaliated by giving her case to a different attorney, who forced her to plead guilty. She served jail time as a result.
The judge in her case allowed her to retract the plea due to the manipulative circumstances, after looking into her allegations. The prosecutor noted that “he couldn’t explain why a judge would release her from jail and allow her to withdraw her plea if… her allegations have no merit”.
Keep in mind, Morrissey was representing this woman — he had her in a vulnerable position. This is the exact sort of thing the #MeToo movement is fighting to stop. He admitted to being “flirtatious”, and did not deny sending the texts.
What does it say about Joe that he repeatedly pursues women when he has a position of power over them, whether due to an age gap, holding their legal future in his hands, or being their employer? Morrissey’s pursuit and manipulation of these women is deeply disturbing and unacceptable for a member of the General Assembly.
New Scandals
In 2016 Morrissey once again found himself opposing the Democratic Party’s candidate in the general election. Fortunately, despite news outlets reporting a surge in support for Morrissey, he only managed 21% of the vote — a distant third place.
However, Morrissey managed to get himself in trouble again during his run for mayor. Despite the fact that Stony had the Democratic Party’s endorsement, Morrissey sent out sample ballots to 35,000 residents suggesting he had the party’s support.
The Democratic Party filed a lawsuit as a result. Morrissey blamed the print-shop and got off with only a small fine. One might think that Morrissey should have looked over the sample ballots before mailing them to 35,000 people.
In response to Morrissey once again avoiding serious punishment for his behavior, an exacerbated Susan Swecker, Chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia, said that “You can always count on Joe Morrissey to conjure up some alternative facts to weasel his way out of accountability”.
However, Morrissey has at least been held accountable by the Virginia State Bar. Although his license to practice law was reinstated in 2011, he was disbarred again in 2018. A three judge panel found that his relationship with his underage employee was “a criminal or deliberately wrongful act that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness to practice law”.
Campaign Finance Violation?
Now Morrissey is running for office again — challenging Democratic State Senator Rosalyn Dance — and it turns out he may have violated election rules again.
Records from Facebook show that a Joe Morrissey spent between $500 and $999 running an advertisement asking “Do you Want to See Me in the State Senate”. The page that funded these ads also hosts all of his other advertising on Facebook, including the advertisement currently pinned to the top of his page.
Morrissey never reported this spending to the Department of Elections, which would violate the Campaign Finance Disclosure Act Of 2006, which requires any spending over $200 to be disclosed.
For his part, Morrissey claims that it was actually somebody else who did this, and he has no clue who it could be.
IdeaStations.org reports that:
In an interview…Morrissey denied any wrongdoing, saying that another man, who he referred to as Mr. X in an earlier letter to the Department of Elections, created the video and also posted it to Facebook independently from Morrissey or his campaign committee. He seemed to suggest he was not in control of the page bearing his name that has over 17,000 followers; regularly posts interviews, campaign events, and campaign videos; and includes his campaign’s phone number and web address.
The ad also seems to indicate that Morrissey created it. After all it is titled “Do you Want to See Me in the State Senate”. The post also states that viewers should “Leave your thoughts below. I look forward to reading them”. [emphasis added]
Let’s think about what would need to be true for Morrissey to not be the owner of this page:
- There is no other page supporting Morrissey’s run, so he must have decided to never make a campaign Facebook page despite living in the social media age
- This “Mr. X.” would have had to spend $500–$999 himself, rather than donating it to Morrissey, who could have legally used it for the same purpose
- Some random person made this page years ago to support Morrissey in his previous runs, and Morrissey never decided to find out who it is
- Despite how long the page has been around, and the fact that it bears his name, Joe has never bothered to contact Facebook to claim the page (if somebody was using your name for a page without your permission, wouldn’t you contact Facebook at some point?)
- Despite linking to his official campaign Twitter, email, phone number, and a donation page, the owner got this information elsewhere
- The owner uses “I” and “My” and “Me” pronouns on dozens of pictures of Morrissey despite actually being someone else
- The advertisements on the page, which appear nowhere else, use first person pronouns referring to Morrissey despite not being made by Morrissey
- Somebody else has the ability to record video of Morrissey that exists nowhere else on the internet, and professionally edit it into an advertisement.
Can anybody honestly believe that all of the above are true? There are probably other logical inconsistencies in Joe’s argument that I am forgetting, but this is already getting pretty absurd, isn’t it?
If Morrissey is the owner of this page, he could face yet another fine, and have the focus of his campaign derailed to another personal scandal rather than being able to serve his constituents.
Consequences if he Wins
On that note, Morrissey simply can not be an effective legislator given all of his scandals. Not only is he a #MeToo nightmare, but his scandals continue to the present day. Do the people of Petersburg and the Richmond area want somebody who can get down to business, or somebody who will have to constantly waste time defending themselves from valid criticism? Do they want somebody who will be able to focus on getting legislation passed, or somebody who will constantly be in the news for all the wrong reasons?
Back when he was a Delegate, Joe Morrissey was ineffective even before his scandals. Despite serving multiple terms, Morrissey was not the patron or chief co-patron of any significant legislation that was signed into law.
Democrats have an excellent opportunity to take control of both houses of the General Assembly this November, but state-wide scandals have already put many candidates in a difficult position. Every Democrat running in Virginia is going to have to answer questions about whether they want Governor Northam to resign in the wake of his blackface scandal, and whether they want Lt. Governor Fairfax to resign in the face of his own sex scandal. Do we want them to also have to answer whether they support Morrissey and his predatory actions in the State Senate? The Joe Morrissey question would be an albatross around the neck of every Democrat in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Current Race
Shockingly, several leaders in the Democratic Party of Virginia I have spoken to, including one elected official, think Morrissey has a good shot of winning this race. So how is it that many observers think Morrissey could win on Tuesday?
Morrissey tries to portray himself as a sort of working-class hero, although this is a dubious claim for many reasons. Not only did Joe move to the district only recently after putting his $1.7 million house on the market, but nearly 90% of his campaign donations come from himself and his law firm rather than grassroots support.
For what it is worth, his opponent, Rosalyn Dance, sponsored legislation this session to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. She has the endorsements of Tim Kaine, Levar Stoney, Terry McAuliffe, members of the Legislative Black Caucus, and almost every local Democratic elected official.
Finally, it is important to know that Morrissey’s record is inconsistent on many issues. For example, Village News Online reports that Morrissey recently described himself as pro-life on abortion issues, despite his past pro-choice stance. Dance has been endorsed by Emily’s List, a pro-choice advocacy group.
Takeaways
I understand that many people want to overlook personal scandals and vote only on the issues. Heck, I agree with that thought process 90% of the time. But this is different.
Morrissey’s pattern of behavior has gone beyond infidelity and into #MeToo territory on multiple occasions. He has clear pattern of being unsatisfied with only one woman in his life, and constantly uses his positions of power over women to take advantage of them. Beyond his predatory side, he simply would not be an effective legislator, and has not shown any loyalty to his constituents after election day passes.
We can do better than Creepin’ Joe Morrissey, and, if Democrats are to be successful in November, we must.
This Tuesday, June 11th, all voters in Virginia’s 16th Senate District should vote for Senator Rosalyn Dance. Polls are open from 6am to 7pm.
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PS: I’m curious to see how he will react to this article. I would not put it past him to threaten some kind of lawsuit to try to silence criticism.
