Richmond Democratic state Sen. Joseph D. “Joe” Morrissey confirms that when he was running for office in November 2019, he gave out doughnuts to election staff inside the polling place at the Powhatan Community Center on Fulton Hill on Election Day and also took pictures with some of them.

He easily won election.

A year later, Sen. Morrissey has been hit with three misdemeanor charges alleging that he violated a state law barring electioneering within 40 feet of any polling place.

New Kent County Commonwealth’s Attorney T. Scott Renick issued three summonses Nov. 30 on which Sen. Morrissey was arraigned last week in Richmond General District Court.

No hearing date has been set.

Mr. Renick is the special prosecutor in the case. Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Colette W. McEachin, who set the process in motion after receiving a complaint from a voter, recused herself from the matter.

Attorney General Mark R. Herring authorized the State Police to investigate the complaint against Sen. Morrissey. The investigation’s findings are the basis on which Mr. Renick issued the summonses.

In a statement Sen. Morrissey released after his arraignment on Dec. 4, he noted that the law provides an exception for candidates to spend 10 minutes inside a polling place, although the law also bars those candidates from hindering or delaying the work of election officers, promoting their candidacy or impeding the conduct of the election.

Sen. Morrissey stated that he did not intend to violate the law and does not believe his actions constitute a violation. He stated that he obliged when “several of the workers asked to take a picture” with him.

Sen. Morrissey also described the charges as “highly suspicious” because he said they were issued after he had endorsed Mr. Herring’s opponent for attorney general, Norfolk Delegate Jay Jones.

The senator asserted that he finds it odd that the attorney general would “investigate the donut delivery man” at a time when “people are dying from COVID-19, losing their jobs, going homeless and worrying about feeding their children.”

The charges are only the latest in Sen. Morrissey’s checkered career and history of conflicts with the law. A former attorney, he has twice been disbarred.

He also made history in 2015 while serving in the House of Delegate as the first member of the General Assembly to commute from jail to participate in a legislative session. He had been convicted in Henrico Circuit Court in December 2014 of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor, and spent three months in jail. That conviction involved an alleged sexual relationship with his underage receptionist, who is now his wife.