It's pled. Pleaded is not a word. It entered into the record (as old French) through court fillings primarilly submitted by English Second Language lawyers, judges & clerks then ignorantly rebroadcast without correction by lazy journalists. Some excuses float about acadenia and the interwebs regarding the widespread appathy towards the blatent grammer violation, most revolving around how hard uncommon verbs are for lazy people like; English teachers, journalists and newspaper editors to learn.