In 2013, halfway through his one-year term, Belleville plaintiffs attorney Tom Keefe was obliged to relinquish his position as interim dean of St. Louis University School of Law when school officials confronted him about crude sexual comments he’d reportedly made on campus.
Such behavior is no aberration. Nor are the political and legal machinations Keefe habitually engages in.
At a press conference in 2014, Keefe coyly challenged the integrity of Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Karmeier.
“I’m just telling you the facts I have. I’m not here to cast any aspersions. I’m not here to politicize this,” Keefe insisted the week before an election to decide whether or not Karmeier would be retained for a second 10-year term.
Whatever. Draw your own conclusions. Suffice it to say that much of what comes out of Keefe’s mouth is vulgar, misleading, and self-serving. Plus, he’s a big contributor to the electoral campaigns of would-be and incumbent jurists he thinks are likely to rule favorably in the cases he might bring before them. Birds of a feather, and all that jazz.
Bearing that in mind, look what Keefe is up to now. He’s desperate to have a case tried in St. Clair County, before a judge whose campaign he contributed to, instead of in Clinton County where the alleged tort occurred.
(What’s the matter, Tom? Don’t you have any Clinton County judges in your pocket?)
Keefe filed his suit two years ago, alleging wrongful death on behalf of Clinton County resident Paulette Evans, administrator of the estate of deceased Clinton County resident Darrell Evans, seeking damages from Urology Consultants, Dugan Radiology, and physicians Jeffrey Parres and Thomas Doyle.
Defendants have moved to have the suit transferred to Clinton County.
Keefe opposes the change of venue. Clinton County jurors would be biased, he argues, because – they live in Clinton County. Plus, the $13,000 he contributed last year to the campaign of the St. Clair County Circuit judge now presiding over the case, Heinz Rudolf, would go to waste.