The top federal prosecutor responsible for the northern district of West Virginia says he will resign at year’s end.
U.S. Attorney William Ihlenfeld, appointed six years ago by Democratic President Barack Obama, says he’ll return to private law practice.
Republican President-elect Donald Trump is expected to choose his own slate of top federal prosecutors around the nation, though some may stay on.
Ihlenfeld says his office’s prosecutions have disrupted drug rings trafficking into West Virginia, convicted doctors improperly prescribing painkillers and uncovered highway bid rigging.
Others cases stopped embezzlements, health care frauds, bank money laundering and excessive use of force by authorities and resulted in numerous convictions for interstate domestic violence, stalking and illegal gun possession by domestic abusers.
He says his office’s litigators recovered nearly $50 million on behalf of victims.
Court records show that the West Virginia University dean responsible for the school’s fraternity and sorority life pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge in Pennsylvania shortly before the school announced his resignation this fall.
Associate dean of students and director of Greek Life Roy Baker, who came to the university a year earlier from Penn State University, pleaded guilty Oct. 24 and later paid a $454 fine before Judge Eugene Riazzi in McKeesport.
School officials acknowledged in early November that Baker resigned but declined to say why.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that the original criminal complaint also accused the 63-year-old Baker of soliciting a male prostitute when he was arrested Sept. 4 but said that charge was withdrawn.
A call to Baker’s lawyer Friday was not immediately returned.
West Virginia State Auditor Glen Gainer will resign from his position earlier than expected.
Longtime State Auditor Glen Gainer announced Thursday he will be stepping down from his position on May 14 to take a job with a Virginia-based nonprofit group.
The 56-year-old had announced in December he would not seek re-election this year but planned to serve out the rest of his term, which would have ended in January 2017.
In a statement Thursday, Governor Tomblin thanked Gainer for his years of public service. Gainer has served as State Auditor since 1993.
In recent months, Gainer had taken heat from state lawmakers over the transition to a bi-weekly pay system for state employees. A legislative audit said the change would result in an extra paycheck for employees every 11 years.
Tomblin must appoint a replacement to finish-out Gainer’s term.
The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals has scheduled oral arguments in the case over replacing a state Senator who resigned earlier this month.
Sen. Daniel Hall of Wyoming County resigned from his seat on Jan. 3. Hall, a Republican, had switched his party affiliation after the 2014 mid-term elections giving the West Virginia GOP a majority in the upper chamber for the first time in more than 80 years.
Republicans maintain Hall’s seat should be filled by a member of their party, but the West Virginia Democratic Party argues since Hall was a Democrat at the time of election, the governor should choose from a list of Democrats to replace him.
The state Democratic Party filed a petition with the Supreme Court Friday asking for an answer to the question, saying West Virginia code is ambiguous on the issue.
The Justices will hear oral argument Tuesday on the matter. Justice Brent Benjamin has recused himself from the case, leaving Chief Justice Menis Ketchum to name a replacement.
When asked Wednesday if he would follow an order handed down by the Supreme Court, Senate President Bill Cole said he had no comment on the matter before it was decided.
The West Virginia Attorney General’s Office, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, the local Republican Executive Committee, and Senate President Bill Cole all filed briefs on the issue this week.
UPDATE: Watch the recording of the oral arguments here.
As West Virginia lawmakers head to the state Capitol Wednesday morning for the first day of the Legislative Session, it’s still unclear if the GOP will maintain its majority in the Senate after Republican Sen. Daniel Hall resigned from his seat earlier this month.
Hall, elected to the Senate in 2012 as a Democrat, switched his party affiliation after the 2014 mid-term elections, giving the GOP a majority in the Senate for the first time in more than eight decades, but his resignation is now causing both parties to question who will be appointed to take his place.
The West Virginia Democratic Party is asking the state’s Supreme Court of Appeals to answer that question. Democrats say because Hall was a member of their party when elected, a member of their party should also replace him.
“We believe that what the statute is trying to do is preserve the mandate of the voters,” Anthony Majestro, a Charleston attorney representing the state Democratic Party in the case, said Tuesday.
Majestro explained the state’s election statutes are ambiguous on the issue, not clearly stating if an appointee should come from the party a politician belonged to at the time of election or at the time of resignation, because lawmakers likely didn’t contemplate affiliation changes when they wrote the law.
Still, Majestro maintained the intent of the law is to replace the politician with an appointee most like the one the voters elected, one of the same party. So, in this case, a Democrat.
Republicans, however, disagree with the stance.
“This is the last gasp effort of a party trying to hold on to the vestiges of power,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael said of the pending litigation.
In fact, Carmichael believes it is not the Supreme Court’s place to decide who should replace Hall at all, unless, he said, Governor Tomblin attempts to seat a Democrat.
“Then we will call upon the Supreme Court to follow the law,” he said.
Credit Perry Bennett / West Virginia Legislative Photography
/
West Virginia Legislative Photography
Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler says the intent of the state’s elections laws are clear: lawmakers who resign from their posts should be replaced by a member of the party they belonged to at the time of election.
Response briefs were filed in the case Tuesday and both parties have asked the court to come to an expedited decision because the Legislative Session begins Wednesday.
Justice Brent Benjamin has rescued himself from the case, likely because he’s the only justice up for re-election this year.
Should the Justices side with the Democrats, though, Carmichael said there are other ways to prevent a Democrat from taking the seat.
“We judge the qualifications of the members and we do not believe that a Democrat in that seat after it’s being vacated by a Republican is qualified to hold it,” he said.
It takes just a simple majority vote, according Carmichael, to determine an appointed Senator is not qualified, but Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler said Tuesday disqualifying an appointee just because there’s a D after his or her name is a dangerous precedent to set and also leaves an entire senatorial district with only one of its two constitutionally provided Senators.
“If he’s ordered by a court to do it, I’d be interested to see him try to disobey a court order,” Kessler added.
Wyoming County Senator Daniel Hall announced Tuesday he’ll resign from the position effective Jan. 3, 2016. Hall will leave the seat he’s held since 2012 to take a job as a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association covering many states, including West Virginia.
Hall notably switched parties, from a Democrat to a Republican, the day after the 2014 mid-term election. The Senate had previously been a tied 17-17 and his switch gave Republicans control of the chamber for the first time in more than 80 years.
During the 2015 session, Hall served as the Senate Majority Whip and the chair of the Senate’s Agriculture and Rural Development Committee and Labor Committee.
He previously served two terms in the House of Delegates.
“The last nearly eight years I’ve spent serving the citizens of southern West Virginia have been eight of the best years of my life,” Hall said in a written statement Tuesday.
“It’s with mixed emotions that I leave to take this job, but I am excited about helping the NRA continue to advance Second Amendment rights for not just West Virginians, but for all Americans.”
Hall said Tuesday he would ask the West Virginia Ethics Commission for a written opinion on his lobbying West Virginia lawmakers during the upcoming legislative session.
After his resignation on Jan. 3, the Wymoning County Republican Executive Committee will have 15 days to nominate possible replacements for the seat. Governor Tomblin will then choose from those nominees.
