Joe Morrissey withdraws slander suit after heated two-day trial

A former state senator suing a former Democratic aide and candidate for slander has withdrawn his suit after the judge ruled he could not call witnesses that had already been excused from testifying.

Joe Morrissey’s decision brought to an end, for now, a $1.35 million case against Arlington County resident Kevin Saucedo-Broach. The two-day trial, which began Tuesday, July 28 in Petersburg Circuit Court, ended Wednesday with a “nonsuit,” a legal term for dismissal of a case before the court reaches a final judgment.

Morrissey told defense counsel Tom Wolf he plans to refile the case, and “we’ll be back here in three or four months.”

The suit was filed in October 2024, four months after Saucedo-Broach responded to a post on X claiming that one of the legislators in a photo on the post “helped a fellow state senator get a pardon for raping his 17-year-old employee.”

While the state senator was not named, it was a reference to Morrissey, who in 2014 entered an Alford plea on a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor as part of an agreement and served three months in jail. The following year Morrissey, a Richmond state delegate at the time, won re-election to that seat.

Morrissey said that Saucedo-Broach, a former aide to Del. Alfonso Lopez, D-Arlington, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for one of Arlington’s House seats, slandered him by saying it was rape when he was convicted of the misdemeanor. She later became that senator’s wife and raised four children with him.

An acrimonious trial

The trial, which was contentious from the onset, turned even uglier on its second day. Morrissey and Wolf had verbally jousted during the trial’s opening statements and throughout the remainder of the trial interrupted each other with objections about witness questions, accusations of leading or arguing with witnesses, and repeating questions that had already been asked and answered.

Morrissey often became exasperated whenever Wolf would object, whirling around at one time and sternly asking him, “Do you have a problem?” At one point during a sidebar with Wolf and Circuit Court Judge Mary Jane Hall, Morrissey raised his voice at Wolf while the jury was still in the room. That forced Hall to send the jury out and warned Morrissey to “lower your voice.”

At one point, Morrissey was called down by a bailiff for trying to talk over Hall. “The judge is speaking,” he said, glaring at Morrissey.

During the trial, Wolf noted Morrissey’s candidacy for the Ward 5 seat on Petersburg City Council this November. He is opposing longtime incumbent and former Mayor Howard Myers in a race expected to generate a great deal of attention.

“He’s trying to turn this into a campaign event,” Wolf told the judge.

The final time that the jury was sent out, Morrissey asked Hall – a retired Norfolk jurist who presided over the case after Petersburg judges disqualified themselves – to reconsider her ruling that disqualified five Morrissey witnesses from testifying before the trial started. Morrissey said the witnesses were “crucial to my case” and added that if they could not be recalled, he would file the nonsuit.

He also complained that Wolf was trying to introduce 100 pages of exhibits on the second day of the trial that were not shared during pre-trial discovery. When Wolf said his office had sent Morrissey a share-file link to them, Morrissey said he gets “hundreds of documents each day” through email.

“This is unfair,” Morrissey told Hall. “This is 100 pages I never saw, and we’ve spent four months reviewing everything.” He accused Wolf of trying to sneak the documents through because that was the only way he could win the case.

When Hall called a recess and left the courtroom to consider Morrissey’s motion, the powder keg that had characterized the trial hit its climax.

Attorneys argue with each other

With the judge and jury out of earshot, Morrissey began shouting at Wolf, saying he was “being sneaky, and I’m not going to tolerate it.”

“You knew I was going to kick your a** in a defamation case,” Morrissey said. “You’re the sneakiest person I ever knew, and you tried to bury evidence … because your client was being crushed.”

A bailiff intervened, asking the men if they wanted to take the discussion in a side room. When Morrissey said he would “love to,” Wolf brought up an infamous 1991 incident in which Morrissey, then Richmond’s commonwealth’s attorney, got into a fight with a defense attorney outside a courtroom after a trial.

“Why?” Wolf asked. “So you can do to me what you did with David Baugh?”

Morrissey stepped away for a moment without answering, and Wolf was heard telling his client, “I guess you’re right, Kevin,” referring to Saucedo-Broach’s testimony about Morrissey being “intimidating.”

The two continued to trade barbs, including some personal comments, before Hall re-entered the courtroom, and the argument stopped.

Jurors dismissed not knowing why trial concluded

After everything settled, Wolf told the judge he was open to allowing the excused witnesses to testify in return for Morrissey withdrawing the dismissal even though some of them had been sitting in the gallery and watching the trial unfold instead of being excluded.

“I don’t accept that,” Morrissey told the judge. “Motion to nonsuit.”

Hall then brought back the jury of si women and two men to inform them that the case was “concluded” and thanked them for service.

As they were preparing to leave, Wolf asked the judge if the jurors could be told why the case was concluded. One more time, Morrissey shouted, “Objection!” and the jurors were dismissed.

Reporting by Bill Atkinson, Petersburg Progress-Index