A new attorney has joined the staff of the Cape Girardeau County prosecuting attorney's office.

Abbie Crites-Leoni joined the staff Monday as an assistant prosecutor for Cape Girardeau County, Morley Swingle, the county's prosecuting attorney, made the announcement.

Crites-Leoni, who will be sworn into the Missouri bar Friday at ceremonies in Jefferson City, learned last week that she passed the exam.

Crites-Leoni will concentrate mainly on family law cases that come through the prosecutor's office, handling primarily juvenile and child support cases.

She graduated cum laude from Southeast Missouri State University in 1993 with a double major in Spanish and theatre. She earned an M.A. degree in speech communication from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1995, graduating summa cum laude.

She completed her law degree at the Southern Illinois University Law School in May.

While she was in law school, she worked as a research editor for the Southern Illinois University Law School Journal and as a staff writer for the Journal of Legal Medicine.

She worked as an intern in the Cape Girardeau County prosecutor's office during the summer of 1997. Crites-Leoni has also worked as a drug prevention specialist for Community 2000 Support Center at Southeast Missouri State University.

Last November, the Cape Girardeau county commission approved the hiring of a new assistant prosecutor to handle child support and juvenile criminal and neglect cases.

Each year, the Missouri Division of Child Support Enforcement refers cases of parents who have neglected to pay court-ordered child support to the county prosecutor's office. In 1997, the number of criminal non-support cases in the county rose by nearly 25 percent over 1996 numbers.

By state law, a person is guilty of criminal non-support if he has not paid support in any given six months of a 12-month period or if he owes more than $5,000 in child support.

Parents who owe less than $5,000, but who have not been consistent in their payments can still be brought to court by the prosecutor's office, though they will face civil action rather than criminal charges.

In addition, the 32nd Judicial Circuit Juvenile Division seeks legal counsel in abuse or neglect cases or in cases in which a juvenile may be tried as an adult.

Such cases involve technical proceedings which go beyond the scope and expertise of juvenile officers.

Previously, both the prosecutor's office and the juvenile division have contracted some of the work to private attorneys. In January, the office hired Angel Woodruff to become the first assistant prosecutor whose duties would be primarily with juvenile and child support cases.

Woodruff will work with the prosecutor's office in another capacity.