CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENST. LOUIS — The Missouri Attorney General’s office on Thurs -day dropped its claim that Sheriff Alfred Montgomery hired his half-brother after DNA evidence showed otherwise, knocking out a key part of the state’s bid to remove Montgomery from office.

In a brief court filing, lawyers for the attorney general’s office said they had relied on a high-ranking deputy in the sheriff’s office for the claim. They said the deputy told them Montgomery himself had said Malik Taylor — the deputy at the center of the allegation — was his relative.

But the AG’s office ultimately bowed to new evidence produced by Montgomery’s attorneys this week — a DNA test from a 2015 paternity suit.

A copy of a court order from that case — which lists a Malik D. Taylor with the

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