Michael Mormino #

Introduction #

Michael Mormino is an Edwardsville, Illinois restaurant manager who spent roughly fifteen years with Lombardo’s Restaurants, most recently as general manager of the company’s location at St. Louis Lambert International Airport. On September 10, 2025 — the same day conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was killed while speaking at a university in Utah — Mormino posted a profane comment about Kirk’s death on his personal Facebook account. A screenshot reached Lombardo’s owners, who suspended him for two weeks and then fired him on September 24, 2025. In late August 2026 he filed a wrongful termination lawsuit alleging he was fired for his political beliefs in violation of Missouri law. Lombardo’s has not admitted any speech-based firing, and the case is pending. St. Louis Magazine reported the suit.

Background Information #

According to his lawsuit and St. Louis Magazine’s report, Mormino had worked for Lombardo’s since 2010 and rose to general manager of the Italian restaurant’s location on Natural Bridge Road at the airport. Fox 2 Now, in a report shared on Free Republic, described him as an Edwardsville, Illinois resident promoted to general manager of the airport location after about fifteen years with the business.

Lombardo’s has operated in St. Louis since 1934, when it opened in North City. The restaurant later ran an outpost at the Drury Inn at Union Station, and in 1993 it moved its North City location to the airport, adjacent to another Drury Inn. The Lombardo family also opened Carmine’s Steakhouse in downtown St. Louis in 2000.

Kirk was killed on September 10, 2025, while speaking at a Utah university. His killing drew intense reactions online, and Mormino’s post about it — made on his personal account, he says — set the dispute that followed in motion.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

Allegations. The post itself is documented from screenshots reported by St. Louis Magazine; what it legally means is unresolved. Mormino claims wrongful termination for his political beliefs; Lombardo’s has not admitted any speech-based firing and the case is pending.

On the day of the shooting, according to his lawsuit, Mormino posted on his personal Facebook page: “Couldn’t happen to a bigger piece of shit except maybe one I can think of! How’s that 2nd Amendment treating you now douche bag?” St. Louis Magazine reported that a screenshot of the post made its way to Lombardo’s owners, who suspended Mormino for two weeks and then fired him. The suit says he was initially suspended on September 10 and fired on September 24, 2025.

The complaint frames the post as private speech. It alleges the post did not mention Lombardo’s, any specific restaurant, any co-worker, or any customer, and that Mormino did not write it on company equipment, on the restaurant’s behalf, or on its Facebook page. He contends he did not direct it to anyone connected to the business.

Lombardo’s side of the story is thinner in the public record. Fox 2 Now reported that Anthony Lombardo, an owner named in the lawsuit, said there were more circumstances around the firing than the lawsuit suggests, without detailing them publicly. Neither Mormino’s attorney nor the restaurant returned St. Louis Magazine’s messages seeking comment, and the restaurant’s owner did not return the magazine’s call.

Public Reaction and Consequences #

The suspension and firing ended Mormino’s fifteen-year run with the company shortly after the post drew the owners’ attention. When the lawsuit was filed nearly a year later, reader debate tracked the legal question at the center of the case. In comments on a Free Republic thread sharing the Fox 2 Now report, most posters sided with the restaurant, arguing that Missouri’s at-will employment doctrine lets a private business sever ties with a worker whose speech it finds damaging or distasteful, and that the First Amendment constrains government rather than private employers. Some suggested the post may have been the last straw after other, undisclosed workplace issues; others predicted discovery would surface additional context.

Current Status #

Mormino’s lawsuit, filed Monday, August 31, 2026, seeks damages as well as compensation for lost pay and benefits. It contends Missouri law prohibits employers from firing employees because of their political beliefs or opinions — the same theory advanced by his attorney, Edwin Ernst, in a parallel suit against Food Outreach on behalf of Justin Kralemann, who says he was fired after making a video criticizing Enterprise Mobility’s leasing of cars to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Because Missouri is an at-will employment state, the viability of that theory is contested. At a July hearing on Food Outreach’s motion to dismiss the Kralemann suit, Ernst argued that Missouri courts have recognized since the 1960s an exception protecting workers from being fired for “acting in a manner public policy would encourage,” and that expressing political beliefs on social media falls under that umbrella. Food Outreach’s attorney, Kimberly Seten, countered that 2017 whistleblower legislation codified other at-will exemptions but not the one Ernst cited; he replied that the legislature cannot “abolish the common law silently.” St. Louis Circuit Judge Joan Moriarty had not ruled on that motion as of the report. In Mormino’s own case, no public response from Lombardo’s had been reported.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

The firing cost Mormino the general manager’s job he had held at one of the airport’s longest-tenured restaurants. His lawsuit seeks damages and lost pay and benefits, and the litigation has attached his name to an unsettled question in Missouri employment law: whether an employer may terminate a worker over personal political speech, or whether a public-policy exception to at-will employment protects such speech. Until the case is resolved, each side’s account remains an allegation rather than a judicial finding, and the outcome — along with the parallel Kralemann case — may help determine whether Missouri workers fired over political posts have any recourse at all.