McCulloch, who hired Coffin, said he believes she was fired over bad blood with Julia Fogelberg, a former public defender who is now one of Bell’s top aides and spouse of Bell’s chief of staff, Sam Alton. “It was just sort of payback,” McCulloch said.

Fogelberg could not be reached for comment. Last year, Fogelberg, while defending a man accused of assaulting police in 2015, accused Coffin of “prosecutorial vindictiveness,” claiming in court filings that Coffin filed a second case from a 2013 arrest against Fogelberg’s client when he refused to plead guilty to the first one.

St. Louis County Circuit Judge Gloria C. Reno denied Fogelberg’s motion. Fogelberg’s client refused the plea offer and was later acquitted at trial on the first case. A judge found the man guilty last year of a misdemeanor resisting arrest charge on the second case.

Combined, the three settlements for the three former prosecutors cost taxpayers at least $170,000.