RFT 📰

A pediatrician in St. Louis has allegedly been exchanging prescription drugs for sex and cash with patients for a decade — an illicit practice federal prosecutors say he continued even after one of the women he supplied narcotics to overdosed and died. Prosecutors wrote in a complaint filed in federal court yesterday that Craig Spiegel has doled out "over 73,000 controlled substance pills" to at least 25 individuals, though the complaint states the number of people he's illicitly provided pills to is probably higher. There was "no legitimate medical purpose" for the doctor to give these people drugs, which authorities say he distributed in a "tit-for-tat" nature, giving them to female patients in exchange for sexual favors and to other patients in exchange for money.

There hasn’t been a large increase in accidents involving St. Louis police — or at least that’s what police told the Board of Aldermen yesterday. The police department always averages 100 to 150 crashes a year, there’s just more photos of them now. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has earned derision for a series of one-car crashes in recent months, including most prominently one where a police SUV plowed into a gay bar (and then arrested the bar’s owner), but also other accidents where police failed to acknowledge their actions or crashed in seemingly spectacular ways.

Though you may not be familiar with the company, First Run Theatre has been supporting Midwest-based playwrights since its founding in 2002. In 2007 the company began producing the Spectrum festival of short plays, offering playwrights the opportunity to stage their works in progress and gather real-time feedback based on performer and audience response. Spectrum 2024 features seven new plays from six playwrights, directed by Melissa Balint Boyer and Rob Corbett and performed by an ensemble featuring Alex Alderson, Iris Clay, Ann Egenriether, Dorothy LaBounty, Justin Panacchia, Erica Perlow, Anna Rimar and Brad Slavik.

Tell me if you’ve heard this one: a single woman over 35 is more likely to be taken hostage than to get married. That often repeated claim comes to life in the lively, well-performed and gender-switched version of Stephen Sondheim’s beloved musical comedy Company. Currently playing at the Fabulous Fox Theatre after a Tony award-winning Broadway revival, fans of the original won’t want to miss the lively, inventively staged production.

Social media posts yesterday announced that the annual People's Joy Parade has been canceled — but it turns out rumors of the annual event's demise have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, the Cherokee Street Foundation says the parade will go on, same time, same place. That place is Cherokee Street, and the parade, which has long been tied to the district's Cinco de Mayo celebration, is set for Saturday, May 4, at its usual starting time of 1:11 p.m., says Emily Thenhaus, director of the Cherokee Street Foundation.

Charles Gragg Jr. is no stranger to schoolyard bullying. Now, decades after his school years, he’s speaking out about his younger brother, Missouri Representative Jamie Gragg (R-Ozark), and the way he’s bullying Missouri teachers and trans students alike.  Gragg introduced a bill last week that would label teachers as sex offenders if they support transgender students by using the name and pronouns that align with their identity.

Jack Maritz was working at Delta Extraction, a marijuana manufacturing facility in Robertsville, in February 2023 when the company’s regular state compliance officer stopped by unannounced. The officer, Heather Bilyeu, wanted to make sure Delta had “accurate counts” in the state’s tracking database of how much THC distillate, or concentrated THC oil, they had in the building. “We weighed every jar of distillate that we had together,” Maritz, the manager of the facility and part owner, said in a hearing Wednesday.

The St. Louis Shakespeare Festival will feature two vastly different plays this summer — with the comedic As You Like It featured at Forest Park and the weird and wild tragicomedy The Tempest in 24 different parks around the region. Everybody's favorite outdoor theatrical experience, Shakespeare in the Park, kicks off As You Like It in Shakespeare Glen on Wednesday, May 29. Opening night will be Friday, May 31, with performances Tuesday through Sunday nights through June 23.

A St. Louis County attorney challenging Missouri House rules hiding the names of constituents who communicate with lawmakers lost an appeal Tuesday — but not for the same reason he lost the case at the trial level. As a result, the House can continue to use its rules to limit disclosures despite a 2018 constitutional amendment that made the Legislature subject to the Sunshine Law. The Tuesday ruling by the Western District Court of Appeals upheld the result of a Cole County case but found it was decided improperly.

Have you ever walked down your street and wondered where that godawful semen smell was coming from? (Get your mind out of the gutters.) It’s the Callery pear trees — the bane of our spring existence. 

A St. Louis jury this afternoon sentenced a 48-year-old man to one month in city jail for allowing the body of an acquaintance who overdosed in his Dutchtown apartment to rot for five days before abandoning the corpse near a back alley. In her closing arguments, prosecutor Jessica Vestal said that David Thompson took the body of Glenn Williams and "dumped him like he was a piece of trash." On March 30, 2023, the 47-year-old Williams died of a fentanyl overdose in Thompson's living room, just one day after the two men first encountered each other.

The south St. Louis church that for the past two weeks has been at the center of kidnapping allegations is again open business after the city reversed its condemnation orders. An email from Deputy Building Commissioner Dylan Mosier dated today says that the condemnation of Mount of Olives Ministry, implemented February 26, is now lifted.

In 150 days, 35 of Dr. Intimaa Salama’s family members have been killed in attacks by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza.  U.S. Representative Cori Bush (D-St. Louis) has invited Salama, a Palestinian dentist and graduate student at Saint Louis University, as her honored guest to the State of the Union address Thursday.  “The ongoing violence in Gaza is an international crisis and it directly impacts people from St. Louis to the Middle East and everywhere in between,” Bush said in a press release Wednesday.

After 21 editions, the True/False Film Fest — or simply T/F — needs no introduction to cinephiles, especially to that savvy subset of moviegoers devoted to nonfiction filmmaking. Unfolding over four days in late winter, T/F annually takes over the college town of Columbia, Missouri, briefly transforming mid-Missouri into the center of the documentary universe. Despite its unlikely locale, T/F has long ranked among the finest doc fests in the world: Filmmakers adore the festival for its large, receptive audiences, and filmgoers appreciate not just its well-curated selection of nonfiction work but also its convivial atmosphere, walkable venue footprint and affordable price. 

A St. Louis man’s new acquaintance dropped dead of a drug overdose in his Dutchtown living room last April. But it’s what happened after the man’s death that landed 48-year-old David Thompson in court yesterday, on trial for felony abandonment of a corpse, a crime that can carry as stiff a penalty as four years in prison.  According to prosecutors, Thompson wrapped the dead man's body in industrial plastic sheeting, then in a layer of Saran wrap.

Missouri native turned international queer pop supernova, Kayleigh Rose Amstutz — better known as Chappell Roan — took the world by storm with her bold, sex-positive, in-your-face songs and flashy, drag-inspired appearance.  Hailing from the small town of Willard, Missouri, Roan felt “disconnected and emotional” as she made her way through Willard High School.  “I didn't have a good time,” she tells the RFT on a phone call from Austin, Texas, where she’s on tour playing arenas as she opens for Olivia Rodrigo.

Do you love densely crowded parking lots but hate the convenience of exits? Are you a big fan of seemingly endless rows of cars who also detests pedestrians? Have you ever wished scores of people would angrily curse your very existence on a daily basis?

As KDHX (88.1 FM) once again sticks out its hands and asks for money during its pledge drive this week, the ongoing behind-the-scenes drama sees the station's leadership continuing to shut out its staff of volunteer DJs from the organization's governance. For the upcoming vote for a new board member, the board put forth only one name — leading critics to label the election as "a mockery of democracy" that "flouts the [KDHX parent company] Double Helix bylaws." Caryn Haddix is the lone candidate on the ballot for this week's election, for which all active volunteers, also known as associates, are eligible to vote.

A 23-year-old who killed a 62-year-old man in south city while speeding in his Maserati was sentenced to 120 days of shock time in prison. At the end of those 120 days, the Missouri Department of Corrections will make a recommendation to the court in St. Louis if Mahdi Gayar should serve a full four-year sentence.  The crash took place in December 2017, when Gayar was 17.

Bacaro, the new cicchetti and aperitivo bar from the team behind the ever-popular Noto Italian Restaurant, a Sauce Best New Restaurant of 2020, is set to officially open on Wednesday, March 6, after a soft opening last weekend. Bacaro is in the same building as Noto at 5105 Westwood Drive in St. Peters, just downstairs and toward the back of the main restaurant. The upscale space is decked out with Italian marble, beautiful stone-topped tables, warm lighting and enough space for 75 inside, with an upcoming patio that should have room for an additional 25 guests.