ASSISTANT PROSECUTOR RESIGNS AFTER MARIJUANA FOUND IN HOME

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Ella Boone Conley has resigned a
month after undercover detectives seized a large number of marijuana
plants from a home she shared with her husband, Prosecutor Jack
Banas said Wednesday.

Banas said that before Conley's resignation Tuesday, she had been on
administrative leave since Aug. 25, pending the results of the
investigation. No one has been arrested, and no charges have been
filed in the case, Banas said. He would not say whether Conley is a
target of the probe.

At Banas' request, a special prosecutor from the St. Louis circuit
attorney's office, Jeanette Graviss, is heading the investigation.
She has said her investigation would take several weeks.

Conley's attorney, Joe Green, said Wednesday that his client had no
knowledge of the plants found in what he described as a "secretive
part" of the residence.

He said Conley and her husband, Max Conley, had a rocky relationship
and that she had only been living at the couple's home in Portage
des Sioux part time. He said Ella Conley did not own the home; a
relative of her husband's is the owner.

Green said Ella Conley was not at home when detectives with the St.
Charles Regional Drug Task Force knocked on the door Aug. 24 and got
consent to search the home.

Police, Banas and Green have declined to comment on any other
details of the seizure, including exactly how many plants were found.

Green said Conley decided to resign to protect the integrity of the
St. Charles County prosecuting attorney's office. He said she soon
would be filing for divorce from her husband.

Conley, 44, had worked as an assistant prosecutor in St. Charles
County for 13 years and ran unsuccessfully for the Republican
nomination for associate circuit judge in the Aug. 8 primary election.

Most recently, Conley had headed the child support enforcement unit.
She also handled felony cases and worked in the warrant office until
starting in the child support section in 1999.

Before coming to St. Charles County, she was an assistant public
defender in southeast Missouri.

Green said Conley planned to continue her legal career and had
already interviewed with a prestigious law firm in St. Charles
County, which he declined to identify.

"She just looks forward to starting her legal practice and career
with that firm," he said.