Remy Belle-Cléron

Remy Belle-Cléron

Order:	20th Première Président
Term of Office:	1 Vendémiaire, CCXX (23 September, 2012) - 5 Sans-Culottides, CCXXVI (22 September, 2018)
Predecessor:	Marie-Claire Gildersleeve
Successor:	Jan Hijkenlieuwper
Date of birth:	24 Brumaire CLXXXIII (5 November 1974)
Date of death:	None
Place of birth:	Florissant, Saint-Louis, Louisianne
Profession:	Lawyer, Politician
Political Party:	Populist Lutheran Democrat (Luthériens Démocratiques Populaires)
Relgious Affiliation:	Catholic

Biography

Born to a working class family in Florissant, Belle-Cléron attended public schools, at first at École Beauvais, then Lycée Pascal, two of the oldest continuous schools in the nation.

Belle-Cléron's father, a gendarme, was eager for his son to follow in his footsteps. Risking a rift, Belle-Cléron pursued studies on law, and became a lawyer, serving underserved communities along the riversides of Saint-Louis.

Seeing the needs of the people of his prefecture under he ran for parliament from Florissant, affiliated with the Luthériens Démocratiques Populaires (L.D.P.), although he, at the time, was catholic.

Member of Saint-Louis Préfectoral Parliament

During his terms serving in the parliament of the Département of Saint-Louis, Belle-Cléron helped enact legislation to reduce the corrupt actions of other MPs, earning him praise from several government watching organizations.

His time as a member of the parliament was not scandal free, however, as he was accused of questionable hiring and staffing practices.

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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.[11]

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.[12]

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.[13][14]

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.[2][5][15] 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.[2]

County prosecutor 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.[16] Additionally, during his first days in office Bell elected to stop prosecuting criminal child support cases.[17]

Bell was confronted in 2020 with a case from 2018, in which a resident of Jefferson County, Missouri, killed a woman.[18] There was a major public outcry for Bell to seek [19] the death penalty for Thomas Bruce,[who?] but Bell refused, keeping his campaign promise.[20] 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.[21]

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.[22] The decision was met with anger from Michael Brown's family who accused Bell of conducting an incomplete investigation.[23] 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.[24]

Following the ten year commemoration of the killing of Michael Brown, Bell pressed felony charges on at least eight protestors in Ferguson. A police officer suffered brain injuries following a fall, however protest organizers say that the incident was not caused by the activist charged with assault.[25]

In October 2024, the population of people incarcerated in St. Louis County jail was more than double than in 2022. Bell told a crime commission meeting that they were still working on backlog from COVID-19 and that judges were tired of seeing the same people come into courts.[26]

In late 2024, Bell accused a county councilman of nepotism due to his step-daughter's temporary position as clerk. Documentation was provided to show that she had not received payment, however Bell further accused her of falsifying documents in a felony charge of forgery. In 2025, the incoming prosecutor dismissed the charges.[27]

Gender discrimination lawsuit 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.[28]

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.[29] The jury trial was rescheduled for January 27, 2025.[30]

On January 24, 2025, a settlement was reached in the case, with St. Louis County agreeing to pay Petersen $500,000.[31]

Use of government resources 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.[32] 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.[33]

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.[34] Under pressure from his supporters, Bell ultimately apologized citing the actions as "missteps" and vowed to spend taxpayer money more appropriately in the future.[35][36] */

First-Presidency Administration

Preceded by: Marie-Claire Gildersleeve	Leadership of Louisianne	Succeeded by: Jan Hijkenlieuwper
Preceded by: INCONNU	Prefect of Saint-Louis	Succeeded by: INCONNU