The Richmond City Democratic Committee voted Thursday to censure State Senator Joe Morrissey (D-Richmond) over threats Morrissey made to Petersburg NAACP President Lafayette Jefferson.
RCDC member Jimmie Lee Jarvis made the motion to censure the senator. “I was very upset to read, and then hear, Sen. Morrissey’s appalling and repeated threats of violence against a constituent, Mr. Jefferson,” Jarvis said according to The Virginia Scope.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch first reported on the spat, which began in Delegate Kim Taylor’s (R-Dinwiddie) office during a discussion over bringing a casino to Petersburg. Jefferson opposes the idea of a Petersburg casino, while Morrissey supports it.
Thirty minutes into the conversation, Morrissey confronted Jefferson over an old Facebook post about Morrissey’s controversial relationship with his now-wife. He was sentenced in 2014 of contributing to the delinquency of a minor after a relationship with a 17-year-old employee who is now his wife, and was pardoned earlier this year. Morrissey is also powerful in the barely-Democratic Senate since he occasionally votes with Republicans, and has cultivated an offense-is-the-best-defense personal brand.
Morrissey said on Wednesday on The John Fredericks Show that the post “referred to my wife being, his words, quote: concurrently, and continuously raped.”
“I said, ‘If you ever threaten my wife, or my kids or my family, I’ll rip your heart out.’ That’s what occurred,” Morrissey told Fredericks, who is also the publisher of The Virginia Star.
In a Facebook vide0 on the Petersburg NAACP page, Jefferson said the media has misreported the quote.
“The bottom line is, he didn’t say he was going to cut my heart out of my chest. He said he was gonna cut my f*****g heart out of my chest,” he said.
“There were no threats on his family,” Jefferson said. “I made it clear to all the reporters that I spoke to that I was not attacking Joe Morrissey’s family or his wife, because honestly I see them as victims of Joe Morrissey’s pathology.”
Morrissey told Fredericks that two women, members of the Petersburg NAACP were also present at the original meeting. Chioma Adaku-Griffin provided a written statement to Morrissey’s office about the meeting criticizing Jefferson’s comments and calling for his suspension from the nascent Petersburg NAACP.
After the Thursday RCDC vote, Morrissey appeared on The John Fredericks Show again, and said the RCDC took the vote without calling him to get his side of the story.
“I heard about it after the fact,” Morrissey told The Virginia Star.
“They’re a bunch of young, white, entitled, wannabe-wokes who took a break tonight from spray painting people’s homes, setting fire to the city, and smashing windows, in order to censure me for simply defending the honor of my wife,” Morrissey told The Virginia Scope. “They have spent the last two years whining incessantly about their insufficient stimulus checks and unsuccessful efforts to defund the police, but on the other hand, I have spent my last two years ending the death penalty, establishing mental health dockets, banning chokeholds, and increasing the minimum wage. All of my bills – who do you think has been more successful.”
“I consider it a badge of honor to be censured by this group of wanna-be wokes,” Morrissey told Fredericks.
The RCDC did not return a request for comment.
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Eric Burk is a reporter at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
