Internet Explorer 11 is not supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

Ex-Virginia Lawmaker Vows to Marry the Teenager He Got Pregnant (and Run for Senate)

Former Del. Joe Morrissey promised Thursday to marry the mother of his latest child, which would cement a relationship that got him tossed into the jail cell that served as his nightly home during the last legislative session.

By Travis Fain

Former Del. Joe Morrissey promised Thursday to marry the mother of his latest child, which would cement a relationship that got him tossed into the jail cell that served as his nightly home during the last legislative session.

Morrissey, 57, held a joint press conference with 19-year-old Myrna Pride Thursday to correct, he said, misinformation floating about their relationship and his fitness as a father.

He confirmed that he has four children by four women. Two of the children are adults, one a young child and the latest a two-and-a-half-month old named Chase, he said.

Any talk of him not being involved in his younger children's lives is false, Morrissey said. With Pride seated next to him and Chase in another room at Morrissey's office the long-time -- and once disbarred -- criminal attorney known as "Fightin' Joe" said the three live together in downtown Richmond.

When Chase cries out at night, it is most often Morrissey who gets up, they said. In the mornings, he wakes first for diaper changes.

Morrissey also re-confirmed his plans to run for the state Senate as an independent, where he hopes to take down Richmond-area state Sen. Rosalyn Dance. Morrissey resigned his House seat twice over the last six months; first in December, when he took an Alford plea on a misdemeanor charge stemming from an accusation that he had sex with Pride before her 18th birthday.

Pride called him "Mr. Morrissey" Wednesday as she denied having sex before she became a legal adult. From the beginning, Morrissey has said explicit pictures law enforcement found on his phone were hacked there. He said Wednesday that the relationship blossomed from friendship to intimacy while Pride worked at his law office, but not before she turned 18.

Morrissey won his resigned seat back during a pre-session special election, but was shunned by colleagues, kicked out of the House Democratic caucus and stripped of all committee assignments. He resigned again in March to make this Senate run, initially as a Democrat. Party officials denied him ballot access after the local registrar declared some 750 signatures he collected for the run invalid, putting him 28 short of the 250 he needed.

Until Wednesday, when he acknowledged paternity in a local radio interview, Morrissey had not said authoritatively that he was the Chase's father. But last week he handed a Richmond television reporter a portrait of himself, Pride and Chase, dressed up in antebellum clothing.

Pride said Thursday the picture, taken at an old-timey photo place in Virginia Beach, was her idea. Her own family had similar portraits made when she was a child, she said.

After Wednesday's radio announcement, Morrissey invited reporters to his law firm for Thursday's family press conference. Shortly before it began -- in a room with a glass case of signed boxing gloves and sporting a framed white T-shirt that said "To Err Is Human To Lose Is Unheard Of -- he asked the media not to take pictures of his son.

Minutes later he and Pride walked in, Pride carrying Chase. She held him up for the cameras as flashes exploded across the room and television cameras rolled. Morrissey stepped aside. After a few moments, he collected Chase, handed him away to lay down in another room, and began the press conference.

The couple said their age difference is a non-factor. Morrissey said they like the same things, including sports, and he described himself at one point as "an aggressive downhill skier."

A reporter asked Morrissey if he and Pride would marry. Pride looked at him, waiting.

"Well, Joe?" she said.

"Of course we're going to get married," he replied. "I love Myrna. She's smart. She's intelligent. She makes me laugh. I think she makes me a better person."

"Outside of the focus that's here right now, we've got a great life," he said.

(c)2015 the Daily Press (Newport News, Va.)

Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.
Special Projects