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Actually, he’s been there since three months after the historic Missouri Supreme Court ruling that bears his name made it illegal to jail people because of their inability to pay for previous jail stays.

That ruling, issued March 19 was about a St. Clair County, Missouri, judge’s decision to put Richey in jail because he was poor.

Associate Circuit Judge Jerry Rellihan had locked Richey up for 65 days because he couldn’t afford a $2,275 bill for a stay in jail on previous misdemeanor charges. The ruling ended the debtors prison practice that had been rampant in rural Missouri.

But it didn’t end Richey’s problems.

A few months before the state’s high court ruling, he was arrested on a couple of other misdemeanors, trespass and low-level assault. Richey has a drinking problem that sometimes leads to run-ins. It doesn’t help that the local criminal justice system has done everything it can in the past few years to keep the 58-year-old retired Air Force veteran locked up as often as it can.

In June he went to court before Rellihan.

The judge hammered him.

Richey was sentenced to 755 days in county jail, in part because the judge found him guilty of probation violations as well as the minor peace disturbance that led to the misdemeanors. Richey believes it was punishment for making Rellihan the poster child for rural judges masquerading as tax collectors.

So there Richey sits, behind bars, in a pod with mostly federal prisoners being held on felonies. On the day we talked, he had been there 236 days.

“It’s getting harder,� Richey says of his jail time. “I feel like a whipping boy. There are people walking out of here with felonies. That’s a hard pill to swallow.�

On Tuesday, Richey fought back.

He filed a civil lawsuit against Rellihan, Sheriff Scott Keeler and St. Clair County, seeking damages for his various imprisonments and violations of his rights because some of those jail sentences — and the bills they came with — were illegal, according to the Missouri Supreme Court’s March 2019 ruling.

“The policies and practices of the County and actions of individuals have built a monetary scheme designed to punish and exploit citizens for profit that effectively results in the practice of criminalizing and incarcerating people as a result of their poverty,� alleges the lawsuit. “Such practices are unconstitutional and illegal.�

The lawsuit was filed by attorneys Michael-John Voss and Corrigan Lewis of the nonprofit . It alleges that Rellihan violated Richey’s First Amendment rights by “retaliating� against him for filing various legal motions related to the Missouri Supreme Court case. The lawsuit seeks at least $25,000 and a declaration that the actions of St. Clair County were “illegal� and unconstitutional.

Richey knows he’s had his issues. But the entire affair has left him penniless.

“I’ve lost everything I own,� Richey says. His only source of income is monthly disability payments from Social Security. He had moved to St. Clair County from Warrensburg so he could be closer to the courthouse, where Rellihan used to call him to court every month to collect on his overdue jail board bill.

The entire scheme, Richey says, “is driven by money. It’s about haves and have-nots.�

Count Richey, for now at least, in the “have-not� camp.

Like other people all over Missouri — and in nearly every other state in the nation where court costs and fees serve as de facto tax hikes and often lead to more jail time for people who lack resources — he is stuck on a hamster wheel, unable to get off.

“Mr. Richey’s story epitomizes the modern-day debtors’ scheme utilized by the County and Sheriff to generate revenue by incarcerating or threatening to incarcerate people too poor to pay jail board bills,� alleges his lawsuit. The suit notes that St. Clair County in 2018 obtained about 40% of its revenue — more than $3.5 million — through the operation of its jail. “This vicious roundabout is particularly hard on poor individuals, who, as a result of their inability to pay, are trapped in a cycle of incarceration and debt without any hope of escape.�