Robert Fernandez likes to carry a cardboard sign along busy roadways.
He has done so at the busy intersection of Interstate 270 and Manchester Road, near West County Mall. He does so in St. Charles, near a highway off-ramp.
“Please, anything helps,” it reads. “God bless.”
Fernandez is not homeless, though he once was. This is how he chooses to make a living. He stands outside in the searing sun of summer and asks strangers for money. To retrieve that money, he often has to step onto the roadway from his perch on a median or the side of the road.
This is where the long arm of the law comes in.
When Fernandez was homeless, his chosen highway off-ramp was in unincorporated south St. Louis County. But the county police ticketed him more than 30 times, charging him under vagrancy and anti-soliciting laws. Fernandez, with the help of attorneys Bevis Schock and Hugh Eastwood, took the county to court. U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr., awarded Fernandez $150,000 and attorneys fees in 2021. Limbaugh declared the county’s laws an unconstitutional infringement on the First Amendment.
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Fernandez bought a home in north St. Louis County with his proceeds. But he figured he was good at earning money on the side of the road, so he kept doing it.
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