After an outburst from Democratic Senator Joe Morrissey, two employees of a Richmond-area radio station took out restraining orders against the senator, saying they feared for their safety.
The studio altercation was first reported earlier this month by VPM, which said the incident was captured on a now-deleted Facebook Live stream. A mostly soundless video of the studio dustup posted by Virginia Scope shows a visibly angry Morrissey yelling at someone off camera. At one point a woman intervenes, taking Morrissey by the arm to try to keep him in his chair and away from the target of his ire.
In a court affidavit, one of the employees, David Pascoe, wrote that Morrissey “lashed out at me on and off air for ‘undermining’ him for seeking clarification.”
“He told me he would make sure I never produced anything and screamed at me about ruining me, while proceeding to intimidate my supervisor,” wrote Pascoe, who said he formerly produced Morrissey’s “Fighting Joe Morrissey Show” on WJFN Radio, the network owned by conservative commentator John Fredericks.
Morrissey responded by laughing off their claims, saying that he was reluctant to “dignify with a response.”
“They are children. The highlight of their life will be that they took protective orders out against Joe Morrissey,”
Morrissey emphasized the fact that the two men had to get an Alexandria judge involved after getting no takers among Richmond judges. However, it’s not uncommon for judges to recuse themselves from cases involving General Assembly members, because state legislators have significant power to hire and fire judges in their own area.
According to Virginia Mercury, Morrissey has a long history of run-ins with the law, including a courthouse fistfight in the early 1990s when he was serving as Richmond’s top prosecutor and the more recent controversy over his relationship with his wife, which began when she was as a 17-year-old receptionist working in his law office. That resulted in a jail sentence after Morrissey entered an Alford plea to one misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, though he was pardoned by outgoing Gov. Ralph Northam in January.
Earlier this year, the president of the Petersburg NAACP said Morrissey threatened him during a meeting in Morrissey’s legislative office in the Pocahontas Building, according to WRIC. At the time, Morrissey did not deny saying he would “rip” the NAACP leader’s heart out.
The court hearing on the restraining orders is scheduled to take place June 3 at 9 a.m, however a two preliminary protective orders were approved on May 20, instructing Morrissey to stay at least 100 feet away from the two men “at all times.”