Albert Watkins
St. Louis personal injury attorneys Mark McCloskey and Patricia McCloskey, who made national headlines after pictures and videos showed them pointing firearms toward protesters in their gated community, have retained a lawyer. The McCloskeys’ hiring of a lawyer is not surprising given that a St. Louis prosecutor is investigating their conduct. But the attorney they chose to represent them, Albert S. Watkins, is—in his own words—“beyond description.”
Watkins is the founding member and senior counsel at St. Louis-based law firm Kodner Watkins, LC. His attorney bio page is a collection of surreal boasts which must be read to be believed.
“Self-centered, egotistical, and a self-proclaimed expert in all matters, Watkins is unabashed about bringing to the public eye the irreconcilable nature of a position taken by an adversary in a case,” the bio states.
Watkins then rattled off a list of “achievements,” starting with his defense of former St. Louis Cardinals slugger Jack Clark.
“Refusing to wither in the face of daunting opposition, Watkins pushed back on behalf of Major League Baseball star Jack Clark when Clark was sued by baseball legend Albert Pujols after asserting the latter used steroids or performance enhancing drugs, publicly challenging the Dominican born to take a lie detector test,” Watkins’ bio says.
But after Pujols filed a defamation lawsuit against Clark accusing him of disseminating “malicious, reckless and outrageous falsehoods” to “generate attention and ratings” for his new sports-radio talk show, Clark issued a public apology admitting he had “no knowledge whatsoever” that Pujols used any banned substances.
Next up was Watkins’s defense of a Missouri rodeo announcer who had apparently been unfairly maligned in Cuba.
“When the Obama mask wearing rodeo clown appeared at a state fair in Missouri and garnered international attention for making racist comments, a school district superintendent announcing the rodeo was erroneously named as the maker of the offending comments,” the bio stated. “Watkins not only reversed a global media error in attribution, including front page clarification in the Habana, Cuba state owned paper, but he brought to the fore the counterintuitive prioritization by the media of inconsequential minutia while the world erupts around them.”
The bio also said that “witnesses subjected to [Watkins’] cross examination” have been rendered “incapable of speaking.” It further said that one of those witnesses went on to die by suicide.
“In Hammon v. Harris, Watkins garnered the first verdict of its kind against a young female who falsely accused a policeman of engaging in sexual relations and snorting cocaine with a female patron of a restaurant at which the policeman was working a security shift,” his page reads, though the case in question actually appears to be Haman v. Harris.
“When the defendant would not appear for her deposition, Watkins procured an order mandating the woman be brought into custody and held in jail pending her deposition. During the ensuing video deposition, Watkins swiftly got the woman to confess and admit the allegations were false,” the bio went on. “The video deposition swiftly became an internet sensation. A six-figure judgment was entered in favor of the policeman. The woman committed suicide thereafter.”
Law&Crime has been unable to find any confirmation that the aforementioned woman, Cassidy Harris, actually died by suicide. In an email to Law&Crime, Watkins said, “I received confirmation from numerous sources regarding the passing of the defendant in that case.”
Watkins also filed a 2015 lawsuit accusing a St. Louis hospital of stealing and selling babies in its parking lot. U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan investigated the claims and said “with complete certainty there are no truth to these allegations.”
What about the McCloskeys? Watkins told the St. Louis Dispatch that his clients, “as melanin-deficient human beings, are completely respectful of the message Black Lives Matter needs to get out, especially to whites.” He maintained that said his clients acted “lawfully” and due to “fear and apprehension” that had nothing to do with race.
Watkins appeared on Fox News alongside his client Mark McCloskey on Tuesday night. Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked if Watkins thought there was a risk that his clients would be prosecuted. Watkins said that there was a chance because St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner is a “political animal.”
“If the law prevails—long-standing Missouri law prevails—they’re fine,” Watkins said.
McCloskey, for his part, said that he was “literally afraid that within seconds they would surmount the wall and come into the house, kill us, burn the house down and everything that I had worked for and struggled for for the last 32 years.”
McCloskey’s lawyer, Albert Watkins (whose bio is AMAZING), says he’s worried that Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner may prosecute his client because “we have a political animal in the attorney’s office.” pic.twitter.com/59zNwcVYBR
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 1, 2020
During a CNN interview later Tuesday evening, McCloskey said he was a person who was scared for his life and the “victim of a mob that came through the gate.”
He said he was in “imminent fear” that he and his wife would be run over and killed. McCloskey said that the important context to understand this fear was that, as recently as June 2, he saw St. Louis burning. McCloskey cited the murder of 77-year-old retired police captain David Dorn.
McCloskey said the “mob” was threatening and committing acts of “terrorism” and “social intimidation.” He said they smashed down the gate to the private gated community and were trespassing.
The attorney has also said that he got a death threat that night.
“One fellow standing right in front of me pulled out two pistol magazines, clicked them together and said you’re next. That was the first death threat we got that night,” McCloskey said. He repeated this account during the CNN interview.
McCloskey further said that the protesters were not walking the correct way to St. Louis mayor Lyda Krewson’s home, where they were believed to be heading. The mayor faced calls for her resignation over the weekend after she doxxed Black Lives Matter protesters on Facebook Live. Krewson later apologized.
[image via YouTube video]
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