| Wesley Bell | |
| Office: | Prosecuting Attorney of St. Louis County |
| Term Start: | January 1, 2019 |
| Predecessor: | Bob McCulloch |
| Birth Date: | 5 November 1974 |
| Birth Place: | St. Louis County, Missouri, U.S. |
| Party: | Democratic |
Wesley Bell (born November 5, 1974)[1] is an American attorney who currently is prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County, Missouri.[2] In a major upset, he defeated long-time yet controversial county prosecutor Bob McCulloch in the August 2018 Democratic primary election,[3] and became the first Black county prosecuting attorney in St. Louis County history when he took office in January 2019.[4]
On June 7, 2023, Bell announced his candidacy in the 2024 United States Senate election in Missouri.[5] In October 2023, he instead opted to run for the U.S. House seat of Missouri's 1st congressional district, defeating incumbent Cori Bush in the Democratic primary in August 2024.[6] [7]
Bell was raised in northern St. Louis County, Missouri. He is the son of a police officer father and civil servant mother. Bell is a graduate of Hazelwood East High School, Lindenwood University, and University of Missouri School of Law.[8]
After graduating from law school, Bell worked as a St. Louis County public defender. He later joined the faculty of Florissant Valley Community College as a professor in the criminology department. Additionally, he also was appointed to be a municipal court judge in Velda City and municipal prosecutor in Riverview. While working as a municipal judge in Velda City, Bell was sued by Arch City Defenders, a local nonprofit, for his role in Velda City's cash bail system.[9]
In 2006, Bell managed the campaign of Mark J. Byrne, a Republican candidate challenging Lacy Clay's seat in Missouri's 1st congressional district. Byrne ran on a conservative platform, including strong opposition to abortion. Byrne described Bell's participation in the campaign as a "friendly favor," saying that Bell did his best to help Byrne win despite their different political views.[10]
In 2015, following the Ferguson Protests, Bell was elected to Ferguson city council, beating out Lee Smith, a first time candidate popular among Ferguson protestors.[11] [12]
In 2018, Bell entered the race for county prosecutor. He ran on a platform of community based policing, assigning special prosecutors in homicides by police, pledging to never seek the death penalty, reforming cash bail/bond, and other progressive points. He received significant support from local and national activists and advocacy groups.[3] [4] [13] The election was also seen as a referendum on incumbent Bob McCulloch, for his decision not to prosecute the white police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown.[3]
In his first hours in office, Bell ordered his assistant prosecutors not to prosecute marijuana cases under 100 grams without evidence of distribution of the drug; however, he still prosecuted marijuana cases where the person possessing the marijuana is armed with a weapon. His office stopped seeking warrants on cases that solely involve the possession of marijuana.[14] Additionally, during his first days in office Bell elected to stop prosecuting criminal child support cases.[15]
Bell was confronted in 2020 with a case from 2018, in which a resident of Jefferson County, Missouri, killed a woman.[16] There was a major public outcry for Bell to seek the death penalty for Bruce, but Bell refused, keeping his campaign promise.[17] Former St. Louis police chief Tim Fitch urged Bell to turn the case over to federal prosecutors so that they could seek the death penalty. However, the family of the victim supported Bell's decision not to seek the death penalty.[18]
Bell reopened the investigation into the killing of Michael Brown in early 2020, and decided not to file any charges against the white officer. Bell ultimately concluded, like his predecessor Bob McCulloch and the United States Department of Justice, that there was not probable cause to criminally charge Darren Wilson.[19] The decision was met with anger from Michael Brown's family who accused Bell of conducting an incomplete investigation.[20] In response to these accusations, Bell stated that his department "relied heavily on the evidence uncovered by the Department of Justice, an investigation that was extraordinarily comprehensive and included interviews of every significant witness and its own forensic examinations." This Obama-era DOJ investigation which Mr. Bell cites concluded, like both Mr. Bell and his predecessor, that the officer should not be held responsible for the death of Michael Brown.
In 2024, Bell asked to vacate the murder conviction of Marcellus Williams on the basis of “clear and convincing evidence” of Williams's innocence. Williams was previously scheduled for execution in 2017, spared by a last minute stay by Eric Greitens, who appointed a board of inquiry later dissolved by Mike Parson.[21]
On October 29, 2020, Susan Petersen, one of Bell's assistant prosecutors, filed a lawsuit under Missouri's Human Rights Act claiming that Bell had fired her and forced out five other female attorneys in favor of male employees. The lawsuit further alleged that Bell had created a hostile work environment for female attorneys at the office. Bell responded by claiming that the prosecutor's attorney was irresponsibly and unethically attempting to litigate her case in the media.[22]
On June 27, 2024, circuit Judge Bruce F. Hilton ruled that Bell would have to answer deposition questions about sexual relations occurring between a supervisor and multiple subordinates in Bell’s office and denied the county’s motion to delay the Petersen trial.[23] The jury trial was rescheduled for January 27, 2025.[24]
Bell was criticized for his use of government resources while in office. In June 2019, KSDK, a local news outlet, reported that Bell had amassed nearly $800 in parking tickets though he was provided with a parking space.[25] In response, Bell's Chief of Staff informed the public that Bell and other staff members needed their cars adjacent to the office and not parked in the sectioned-off parking spaces—over one block away—because Bell, as a prosecuting attorney, needed both him and his agents to have immediate access to their cars in order to best secure justice for the county of which he was responsible. This Chief of Staff further advised that, for Bell and other employees, they could expect up to seven calls a day that would require them to travel to their car, and each of those seven calls would waste taxpayer dollars if they were to park further away from their office. Bell later paid off the parking tickets using his own money.[26]
In October 2019, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch conducted an investigation into Bell's expenditures during the first ten months in office. The investigation uncovered that Bell had spent over $30,000 in government funds on travel and food during his first ten months in office. This included an $816 dinner at an expensive Miami steakhouse and a $300 meal at a Lake of the Ozarks steakhouse. In response, Bell informed the Dispatch that he repaid the Miami dinner immediately and refused to charge his office for any additional expenditures. Bell did not comment on the Ozarks meal directly, but informed the Post-Dispatch that, while he needed to get in the good graces of local law enforcement to perform his duties as prosecutor, Bell recognizes that the meal wasn't a common expense during the previous prosecutor's long tenure. However, Bell noted that he had to simultaneously work with the police and hold them to a higher standard, justifying the expense. Furthermore, the Post-Dispatch also reported on Bell's efforts to hide details of his spending, such as omitting thousands of dollars of charges from requested records, charging the Post to provide requested documents, reimbursing expenditures only after records requests for those expenditures were made, and being nonresponsive to sunshine requests.[27] Under pressure from his supporters, Bell ultimately apologized citing the actions as "missteps" and vowed to spend taxpayer money more appropriately in the future.[28] [29]
In 2023, Bell announced a challenge to Josh Hawley for the U.S. Senate, in which he polled higher than fellow Democrat candidate Lucas Kunce.[30] In late October 2023, he dropped out from the Senate race to challenge fellow Democrat Cori Bush for Missouri's 1st congressional district seat. Leaked audio confirmed that Bell previously told Bush he would not run against her.[31] Bell told Bush, "I'm telling you on my word I am not running against you."[32]
Politico reported that AIPAC earmarked over $800,000 for Bell's campaign as of April 30, 2024.[33] Campaign ads are funded by United Democracy Project.[34] In May 2024, it was reported that Bell had raised more than $65,000 from donors who also gave to one of Missouri’s two Republican senators, Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, in their most recent campaigns, or Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, the leading Republican candidate for governor.[35] It has been reported that Bell received support and campaign financing from conservatives and Republicans.[36] In addition, the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC and the Democratic Majority for Israel had spent large amounts of money to defeat Bush.[37] [38]
On July 25, 2024, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which had previously been critical of Bell,[39] [40] endorsed him.[41]