ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - A St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney nominee made stunning claims earlier this week that an associate of County Executive Dr. Sam Page asked her to dig up dirt on a political rival of Page.
In a meeting with members of the St. Louis County Council, Melissa Price Smith, who was picked as Missouri Gov. Mike Parson's nominee for St. Louis County Prosecutor and currently a assistant prosecuting attorney in the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, alleges back in October, she was asked by an associate of Page to dig up dirt on Republican Councilman-elect Mike Archer, who was a private citizen and candidate when the request was made.
Price Smith says she refused, but she would later be pressed a second time.
"I told them I had no dirt on Archer, and then it was my understanding he quit years before I began," said Price Smith. "I received a call two days later from the same person on behalf of Dr. Page instructing me to try harder."
Price Smith added the requests came prior the interview process to succeed outgoing Prosecuting Attorney and Congressman-elect Wesley Bell.
St. Louis County Councilman Dennis Hancock, who was asking questions to Price Smith at the time when she made the allegations, tells KMOX News when he first heard of the allegations from Price Smith, it stunned him.
"People do opposition research all the time," said Hancock. "But I'm surprised people would reach out to someone was is going to be a candidate for prosecuting attorney to ask them to dig up some dirt on someone who (at the time) was running for office."
"I find that to be unconscionable. The county prosecutor should be above all of that."
Hancock believes that, eventually, there should be an investigation into the allegations Page Smith made in public.
"It goes way beyond 'don't do that'," said Hancock. "I think it's something that probably needs to look into by law enforcement to make sure there weren't any laws broken."
The allegations from Price Smith comes the same week as St. Louis County Board Committee voted unanimously to recommend that the full St. Louis County Council to reject Page's nomination of Cort VanOstran as Bell's replacement.
It also comes the same week a judge heard arguments as to who would ultimately have authority to pick the next County Prosecutor as Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and Attorney General Andrew Bailey argue it is up to the the governor, pointing to the Missouri Constitution, while Page points to the county charter.
Hancock tells KMOX he would like to see the fight to name Bell's replacement completed first before moving forward.
"Right now, there's a lot of plates spinning in the air," said Hancock. "I think that we'll get to it."
"We don't want to muddy the waters here. I think we can wait until after Jan. 1 when the new prosecutor is in place."
Councilman Hancock also says he would like to see the new council seated and prosecuting attorney fight settled before pushing for any investigation.
KMOX Legal Analyst Brad Young gave his take on 'The Chris and Amy Show' if there were any grounds at the moment to prompt a legal investigation.
"Right now, since as far as I know, Price-Smith testified she didn't know who exactly called her, and since it was by phone, this is really unsubstantiated," said Young. "If it was possible to obtain verification that's what was done, this would be explosive. This is the kind of thing people go to jail over."
"However, since it's by phone, we don't know who said it, we don't know the contexts. There could be a dispute about what was said. There's no transcript of the call. Because of all those squishy parts of this story, I don't really see if there would be enough to even launch an investigation, much less prosecute anyone for this."
A spokesperson for Page said they have no idea what Price Smith is talking about and look forward to the judge's decision.