ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. – The St. Charles County Council approved the appointment of Joe McCulloch as the new county prosecutor on Monday. St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann appointed McCulloch after Tim Lohmar suddenly announced his retirement last month.
McCulloch’s appointment will run through December 2024. McCulloch said he plans on reaching out to St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s Office to offer any assistance after the resignation of several assistant prosecutors in her office.
“I’ll reach out to Ms. Gardner and offer the assistance of our office in handling some cases,” McCulloch said. “I know that she’s down prosecutors, so if we can assist, this is a regional problem that needs to be handled by the region. So I will also contact prosecutors in the surrounding counties.”
He plans on prosecuting some of the high-profile cases from start to finish. McCulloch said being hands-on is very important to him, and he wants people to know he is tough on crime but also plans on looking at each case individually.
“As a police officer, I understand victims; I understand people sometimes do dumb things,” McCulloch said. “You have to know the difference between good people that do dumb things and mean people that do mean things, and that’s what basically I’m going to look at.”