Court Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Hearing Will Determine Whether Two Jefferson County Officials Stay In Office

Two members of the Jefferson County Commission could be removed from office, depending on a court ruling. The commissioners skipped months of meetings in protest of vacancy proceedings.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

Two members of the Jefferson County Commission could be removed from office, depending on a decision from the state’s 23rd Judicial Circuit Court.

Proceedings began Tuesday in a hearing against Commissioners Tricia Jackson and Jennifer Krouse, who came under scrutiny in late 2023 for skipping months of meetings while still collecting their salaries.

Jackson and Krouse described their absence as a protest against vacancy proceedings.

The commission was required to appoint one of three candidates selected by the Jefferson County Republican Executive Committee (JCREC) to a seat vacated by Republican Commissioner Claire Ath in June 2023.

But the commission quickly came to a deadlock. Jackson and Krouse raised concerns over both the JCREC’s nomination process and the commission’s vacancy procedure.

On Facebook, Krouse said the Commission was not provided “actual conservatives,” and that elected Republicans are often “incompetent, self-interested [or] closeted liberals,” MetroNews previously reported.

In November, a judge ordered that Krouse and Jackson resume attending meetings, and they obliged.

The commissioners’ absence drew attention from state lawmakers, who moved to clarify vacancy protocol with a bill that swiftly passed both chambers.

While meetings have since resumed, local authorities said they are still pursuing legal recourse over what they described as a months-long standstill in local government.

In March, the two commissioners were charged with 42 misdemeanors.

And Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Matt Harvey said he would follow through with a petition he filed in November 2023 to remove them from office.

Harvey, also a Republican, did not respond to a request for comment on this story Wednesday morning. At the time of the request, a staff member at the attorney’s office said Harvey was at the courthouse for the hearing, which continued through Wednesday.

However, in the November petition — first published online by the Spirit of Jefferson — Harvey described it as his “sworn duty to protect the county, uphold the rule of law and hold all citizens, including elected officials, accountable for their unlawful actions.”

Later in the petition, Harvey argues it is a “mandatory duty” in the West Virginia Code for county commissioners to fill vacancies.

“By refusing to attend meetings, [Jackson and Krouse] have willfully blocked the commission from performing its mandatory statutory duty,” he wrote. They have also “stated their opposition to the slate of replacements put forward.”

Jefferson County Commissioners Tricia Jackson and Jennifer Krouse refused to attend meetings from early September to late November 2023.
*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

During the first day of the hearing, Harvey’s arguments centered around tasks the county commission was unable to complete during the commissioners’ absence, The Journal reported.

Because of their absence, the commission struggled to meet quorum. This meant they were unable to hire 911 dispatchers, provide a grant to victim advocates or apply for funding to improve the county courthouse, the Associated Press reported.

Additionally, Harvey questioned witnesses about posts the commissioners made to Facebook denouncing candidates selected by the JCREC.

In September, Krouse wrote that the candidates all had “strong ties to progressive, green energy,” according to the petition.

This contradicted previous claims that Jackson and Krouse were avoiding commission meetings out of concern for vacancy protocol, Harvey argued.

The office of legal counselors for Jackson and Krouse declined to comment on this story.

In her cross-examination, Jackson and Krouse’s attorney Traci Wiley asked members of the commission why they refused to remove the vacancy procedure from meeting agendas.

Previously, Jackson and Krouse stated they would attend meetings so long as the vacancy was not discussed.

“The law stated we shall appoint,” said Commissioner Steve Stolipher, a Republican, during his testimony. “If I had taken it off the agenda, I would be breaking the law.”

As of Wednesday morning, neither Jackson nor Krouse had yet testified during the hearing.

But on March 14, after she was initially charged with the misdemeanors, Krouse provided a written statement to West Virginia Public Broadcasting likening the legal proceedings to the “corruption” and “poisonous ideology” of politicians in Washington D.C.

“What is happening to Commissioner Jackson and me is a travesty and it is unamerican,” she wrote. “Unfortunately, the political establishment of Jefferson County [has] decided to use the legal system, which they control, to persecute their political opponents.”

In his petition, however, Harvey described it as a duty of his role as prosecuting attorney to pursue the commissioners’ removal.

Jackson and Krouse’s actions left Harvey “no course of action” but to file a petition for their removal, he wrote.

This hearing is separate from the 42 misdemeanor charges Commissioners Tricia Jackson and Jennifer Krouse face in criminal court. For more information on those charges, see our previous reporting.

Virginia Doctor Who Prescribed More Than 500k Doses Of Opioids Granted New Trial

Authorities said Joel Smithers headed a drug distribution ring that contributed to the opioid abuse crisis in Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

A Virginia doctor who was sentenced to 40 years in prison after prescribing more than half a million doses of highly addictive opioids in two years has been granted a new trial by a federal appeals court that found the instructions given to jurors at his trial misstated the law.

Joel Smithers was convicted in 2019 of more than 800 counts of illegally prescribing drugs.

During his trial, prosecutors said patients from five states drove hundreds of miles to see him to get prescriptions for oxycodone, fentanyl and other powerful painkillers. Authorities said Smithers headed a drug distribution ring that contributed to the opioid abuse crisis in Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

In a ruling issued Friday, a three-judge panel of the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Smithers’ convictions and ordered a new trial.

Jurors at Smithers’ trial were instructed that in order to find Smithers guilty of illegally prescribing drugs, they must find that he did so “without a legitimate medical purpose or beyond the bounds of medical practice.”

But the appeals court found that that jury instruction was improper, citing a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said a defendant must “knowingly or intentionally” act in an unauthorized manner to be guilty of that charge. Even though the jury convicted Smithers in 2019, his case was subject to the 2022 Supreme Court decision because his appeal was still pending when that ruling was issued.

Justice Roger Gregory, who wrote the 3-0 opinion for the 4th Circuit panel, cited Smithers’ testimony at his trial, when he said almost all of his patients had had significant car or workplace accidents and that he believed there was a legitimate medical purpose for each of the prescriptions he wrote. Gregory wrote that even though “a jury might very well not have believed Smithers’ testimony that he acted with a legitimate medical purpose,” the defense provided evidence that could have led to a finding of not guilty on each of the unlawful distribution charges against Smithers.

“In sum, because there was evidence upon which a jury could have reached a contrary finding, the instructional errors were not harmless,” Gregory wrote.

During Smithers’ trial, a receptionist testified that patients would wait up to 12 hours to see Smithers, who sometimes kept his office open past midnight. Smithers did not accept insurance and took in close to $700,000 in cash and credit card payments over two years, prosecutors said.

“We understand the 4th circuit decision following a recent change in the law and look forward to retrying the defendant, ” U.S. Attorney Christopher Kavanaugh said in a statement Monday.

Beau Brindley, an attorney for Smithers, said that since the 2022 Supreme Court decision, “only one thing decides a doctor’s guilt or innocence: his own subjective beliefs about his prescriptions.”

“Under this new legal standard, with the focus now solely on his intent, Dr. Smithers looks forward to being fully exonerated at trial,” Brindley said in a statement.

Morgantown Man Indicted In Assault Of Capitol Police Will Stay In Jail, Judge Rules

A federal judge ruled Monday that George Tanios, a Morgantown man indicted on charges of conspiracy to injure U.S. Capitol Police during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, will stay in jail pending a trial. One officer, Brian Sicknick, died the next day.

In his ruling, Magistrate Judge Michael Aloi said he could not ignore the broader context of the Capitol riots.

“It’s hard for me to look at this as anything other than an assault on our nation’s honor and everything that’s important to us as a people,” Aloi said.

Federal prosecutors showed surveillance videos and body camera footage where they say Tanios handed a chemical spray canister to Julian Khater of Pennsylvania who then used it on three U.S. Capitol Police.

The owner of ATR Performance in Morgantown told investigators that Tanios visited the store on Jan. 5 and asked if he could take a firearm or pepper ball gun into the District.

The owner told Tanios these weapons were outlawed and the man opted to purchase cans of bear spray and pepper spray. Prosecutors said according to the store owner and cell phone records, Tanios was on the phone with Khater when we entered the store.

Prosecutors said Khater told them in a statement after his arrest that he picked up Tanios in Morgantown and they traveled to Washington, D.C. together. According to Khater, the two men stayed at a hotel room and took a rideshare service to the Trump rally.

After Tanios’ arrest, investigators searched his home and found two unused canisters of Frontiersman Bear Spray and a small black canister of pepper spray on a keychain.

At Khatar’s home, prosecutors said investigators found a spent black canister that resembled the unused one found at Tanios’ home. Searches of the two men’s residences turned up various articles of clothing the two men were seen wearing in videos and photos from the Capitol Riots, according to prosecutors.

Tanios’ defense lawyers, public defenders Beth Gross and Richard Walker, presented a series of character witnesses Monday to advocate for his release until trial. Tanios’s fiance, mother, sister, and friends testified that he had three children, owned a business and home in Morgantown and was not violent.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Wagner dismissed this defense.

“We have no doubt that Mr. Tanios’ family loves him very much, but we would just point out that these family and community ties were in place before he committed these crimes that he’s accused of,” Wagner said.

At one point, Tanois’ mother, Maguy, appeared during the hearing. Through tears, she recounted moving to the United States from war-torn Lebanon to build a business and raise a family in New Jersey.

“I raise my kids to work 12 hours a day,” she said. “I don’t raise bad kids.”

She passionately denied a tip cited by prosecutors from a confidential informant saying that a member of the family had plans to help her son escape the country.

“This is my country,” she said. “God bless the United States.”

Maguy said she speaks with her son often, but not about politics.

Tanios’ fiance also spoke in his defense, saying that he was a good father who worked long hours to provide for their three children.

Aloi, the judge, acknowledged Tanios’ community ties but sided with the government’s case. He questioned the defendant’s choice to participate in the Capitol riot and the large forces that compelled his actions.

“We’ve created this culture, radicalized by hate, and just refusal to accept the result of the democratic process,” he said.

Attorneys to Challenge Rates in Court-Appointed Cases

A Charleston attorney has notified state officials he will challenge guidelines that would cut the amount lawyers are paid for their time in court-appointed cases.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports Anthony Majestro sent the notice December 23 on behalf of attorneys and law firms that take court-appointed cases.

Majestro says he will file a petition for a writ of mandamus with the West Virginia Supreme Court against the state’s Public Defender Services. The petition will argue that the current pay rate is too low and will ask the court to stop the guidelines from taking effect Jan. 18.

Under the guidelines, attorneys will no longer be reimbursed for mileage and will be compensated $20 an hour for travel time. Time spent “waiting in court” also has been more narrowly defined.

Boone Woman Gets Life Sentence for Murder

A Boone County woman has been sentenced to life in prison with the chance for parole for killing a 71-year-old man in a drug-fueled scheme.

22-year-old Maura Perry of Hamlin was sentenced Thursday in Boone County Circuit Court for a first-degree murder conviction.

Perry pleaded guilty last month in the September 2012 shooting death of Jimmie Cooper of Peytona.

Investigators say that after the shooting, Perry stole items from Cooper’s home and sold them to support her drug habit.

Perry will be eligible for parole after serving 15 years.