Apparently this writer never heard of the word pled.
Actually “pled” isn’t a word. Or it didn’t use to be. Use pled in journalism 101 and you get a zero.
:Pleaded vs. pled. Pleaded is the standard past tense and past participle of the verb plea. Pled has always been considered incorrect by people who make such judgments, but it is so common that we have to accept it as an alternative form.”
But is still not considered acceptable in highly structured writing.