Leroy Pearl

**CHARACTER NAME** is a character role-played by Discord.

## General Description

Leroy Pearl is a new citizen of Los Santos and a board certified criminal defense attorney in his former home state of Florida.

## Backstory

Born on March 1st, 1980 as Leo Lamont Dubois to his parents Jean and Paulette, Leroy “Gangsta P” Pearl is a man who spent his childhood growing up in the Bayous of Louisiana and Florida. Originally from Lafayette Louisiana where he spent the first three years of his life living with his biological parents, the young family spent their short time together in abject poverty. Leroy’s parents were both second generation American citizens and despite the obstacles his biological grand parents overcame to gain passage to and ultimately citizenship in “the land of opportunity”, they found little opportunity to speak of.

Jean would spend the spring and summers working as a farm hand for a local rancher and in the cooler months Jean would help his brother Julien brew moonshine. His mother Paulette would stay home with her infant son and do what she could to make ends meet. Though not much else is known by Leroy about his biological parents, it is known that Jean and his brother were rough, unsavory characters who weren’t afraid of breaking the law to make a dime and weren’t afraid to take a blade to anyone who got in their way.

One evening, when Leroy was about to turn three years old, Leroy’s father Jean was involved in a fight at a local watering hole. The story goes that the initial argument broke out over a small debt that was owed to Jean. Many drinks were consumed, one thing lead to another, words came to blows, and before anyone knew what was happening, the man Jean was fighting pulled out a knife. Jean having had the background that he had also pulled out his blade and made short work of his debtor. The next day, Jean was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. Because the family had little spare money, Jean’s fate was placed in the hands of a public defender who was also friends with the sheriff. You see, the sheriff knew about Jean, he knew about Jean and Julien’s moonshine enterprise and he had been looking for a way to get rid of Jean for several years. Needless to say, the public defender failed to do anything even slightly resembling his job and Jean was sent upstate to serve the rest of his life in hard labor and imprisonment. Leroy’s mother Paulette tried her best to make ends meet for a while but she knew she couldn’t raise he son alone. So one evening, she hitched a ride into the Florida pan handle and tied Leroy to the front door of a local Methodist Church, the Church of Pastor Marcus Pearl, with a note tied to Leroy’s wrist that said: “Single Mother. Cannot support a child. Please Help!!”

Marcus Pearl was a good man, a man of God. When Pastor Pearl arrived to the church the next morning, he found Leroy tied up, scared, and alone. Marcus and his wife Jane had been trying to have children of their own for years with no success so upon meeting little Leroy, they decided to adopt Leroy. The rest of Leroy’s childhood was spent in relative safety and luxury in the loving care of a family who raised him according to the word of the good book and that is how things went for Leroy
for the next several years.

Then one day, shortly after Leroy turned 13, Leroy’s biological Grandmother who was suffering from a terminal illness went to northern Florida and found Leroy walking home from school one day. She approached Leroy and told him who she was. She explained what had happened to Leroy as a toddler, explained what happened to Leroy’s biological father and explained that she had come to say goodbye and that she was sorry their family couldn’t have done better for him. Then she left him with whatever money she had been able to save in the last years of her life and took her leave. Upon his biological Grandmother’s departure, Leroy was crushed by all the new information. He locked himself in his room for days where he would spend his time processing all of what he had learned and all of the feelings it was causing him to have. Leroy felt betrayed, abandoned, and unwanted. When he emerged from his room, weeks later, Leroy was a different person. Realizing that the world isn’t just the rosy, Godly place that his new parents had taught him it is, Leroy’s feelings of anger at the world began to get into trouble, a LOT. He began to hang out with the trouble makers at his school and they would get into the kinds of trouble that boys his age sometimes get into. They would get into fights, they would steal from stores, they would drink and smoke pot, and most of all they would ditch school to go fish and hunt alligators and snakes in the swamp. Leroy would spend the rest of his middle and high school years doing only what he needed to do to get by in school so he could spend the rest of his time in the only place he felt truly safe: with his friends in the beautiful wilderness of northern Florida.

 Shortly after graduating high school (barely) tragedy struck Leroy’s life once again. Leroy’s best friend Billy was shot in the back by a sheriff’s deputy after stealing a bottle of Tennessee bourbon and attempting to flee. The deputy responsible for this cowardly act of incompetence was placed on paid-administrative leave and later cleared of any wrong doing after it was discovered that Billy had a gun in his waistband and (as the deputy claimed) began to reach for his gun as he fled. Once again Leroy’s life was turned completely upside down. Once again, Leroy descended into near-madness inducing anger. Once again Leroy retreated into his room and didn’t emerge for weeks. He considered killing the deputy who had killed his friend. He considered burning down the sheriff’s home. He considered suicide. Then he realized something: the only way he could get revenge on that deputy and all crooked cops was to do things differently. You see, Leroy was a sharp young man. He realized that if he killed the man who killed his friend, or burned down his home, or committed suicide, then THEY win. Right then and there he vowed to do the only thing he could think of: to dedicate the rest of his life to studying law and fighting back against the crooked legal institutions of the world.

 And so it went: Leroy again emerged from the depth of his own anger, despair, and depression, a phoenix determined once again to fly away from the flames that almost consumed him. Something was different this time however: he wasn’t just a phoenix flying away from the flames, he was a phoenix who was flying and also had a plan on where he would go. So off he went. First to the local community college, then to the university a few hours away and on his conquest of academic supremacy, he would take no prisoners. He would earn nothing but A’s in his classes, he would set the curve on almost every exam, he would lead the debate team during his undergraduate years. Finally at the age of 24, Leroy found himself graduating Summa Cum Laude in Political Science and History and with a score of 175 on his LSAT and a letter of acceptance from The University of Florida school of Law where at the age of 27, he would find himself graduating with his Juris Doctor, and passing his MPRE and bar examinations.

 Once certified in the state of Florida as a criminal defense attorney, Leroy would work as a public defender for 8 years, and then work as an associate for a private practice in Miami for an additional 5 years. Upon turning 40, after earning his past clients countless acquittals, dropped cases, and not guilty verdicts, Leroy once again decided it was time to spread his wings and begin anew. Thirsty for a new environment, new adventures, new friends, and a new setting, Leroy chose San Andreas as his new home.

 What tales shall this new chapter add to the story of Leroy’s life?

## Quotes

"Just because you did it doesn't mean you're guilty!"