CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - The former office manager of a legal aid clinic in Charleston has admitted fraudulently taking $1.5 million over 12 years.

Authorities say Kim Cooper, of St. Albans, oversaw daily operations at the Mountain State Justice office, including bank deposits.

The nonprofit provides civil legal services to low-income West Virginians.

The 55-year-old Cooper pleaded guilty Monday to wire fraud and tax evasion.

Prosecutors say she admitted that she secretly established a separate bank account in the nonprofit's name, deposited checks for attorneys' fees, then moved money to a private bank account for personal use starting in 2004.

She could face up to 25 years in prison at sentencing April 20 and has agreed to pay restitution to the extent she can.

Paramedics with the Charleston Fire Department responded to five overdoses within city limits Thursday.

Capt. Mark Strickland with the fire department said that the number of overdoses "ebbs and flows" in the city. He said between two and three overdoses occur in the city each day, on average.

All were opiates. Four were heroin and one was an unknown opiate.

No one died, Strickland said. The fire department has naloxone on hand to administer during opiate overdoses.

Capt. Mike Jarrett of the Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority said he didn't have numbers readily available and couldn't say for sure if overdoses have increased recently. A Kanawha County Metro 911 employee said they couldn't provide numbers because sometimes overdoses are coded as cardiac arrest or another problem.

A body found in Point Pleasant earlier this month has been identified as a Kanawha County man, police say.

James Timothy Brammer, 37, was found in the Kanawha River in Point Pleasant on Jan. 14, according to Major Mike Farry, deputy chief of the St. Albans Police Department. Farry said he believes the body was first seen by a barge captain.

State Police and the Point Pleasant Fire Department recovered the body, Farry said. He received confirmation Monday that the body was identified as Brammer.

State Police are investigating. They are awaiting autopsy results to determine cause of death.

Farry said the death didn't appear to be the result of foul play.

Brammer was last seen on Nov. 15, according to an email Farry sent reporters in late December.

Brammer was not immediately entered into the National Criminal Information Center because he was an adult who had gone missing before and didn't appear to be in imminent danger, Farry said.

NCIC guidelines state that a person may be entered into NCIC who "is missing under circumstances indicating that the person's physical safety may be in danger" or "under circumstances indicating that the disappearance was not voluntary."

"We were never really looking at him as being a victim of some sort of threat," Farry said.

Brammer was homeless and had struggled with drug addiction, Farry said.

Police entered him into NCIC after contact with family. They learned he had felt suicidal in the past.

Farry said the investigation now belongs to the State Police, unless State Police say a crime happened in St. Albans.

Asked for comment about a body found, Lt. Michael Baylous said via email that the body "was identified as James Brammer from Kanawha County."

"Investigation continues," he wrote.

Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.

An ambulance veered off the road in Teays Valley Tuesday afternoon, causing injuries for those on board.

The accident happened on Route 34 near the intersection of Route 35 in Putnam County.

According to the Putnam County Sheriff's Department, the vehicle left the road after the driver fell asleep at the wheel. After hitting a telephone pole, the ambulance landed in a ravine.

Deputies said two crew members and a patient were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

Putnam County EMS and the Winfield and Teays Valley Fire Departments responded to the accident.

The accident is under investigation by the Putnam County Sheriff's Department.

A two-year battle between Frontier Communications and the company's disgruntled internet customers landed Tuesday at the West Virginia Supreme Court, where lawyers argued over the fine print included in monthly bills.

Frontier maintains that its customers agreed to "terms and conditions" that require the two sides to settle disputes through arbitration - not in a court of law.

But Frontier's internet customers allege the company buried those arbitration provisions in multi-page monthly bills, using print so tiny that nobody saw it.

"There's no reason for a person to flip through all these advertisements, offers for services," said Jonathan Marshall, a lawyer representing Frontier customers in the class-action lawsuit. "You get the bill, you tear off the stub. There's no reason to flip through all this."

Frontier's lawyer, Archis Parasharami, told justices that the company didn't hide anything from anyone.

"No one could miss the bold type at the front that says 'residential internet terms and conditions,'" Parasharami said. "This was sent to everybody. Everybody understands what terms and conditions means."

Frontier's customers, however, never agreed to the arbitration requirements, Marshall said.

"It's a simple matter of contractual formation," he said.

In 2014, Frontier customers sued Frontier, alleging the company failed to provide the high-speed internet services it advertises. The lawsuit claims that Frontier "throttles back" its internet service, providing slower service to save the company money. Frontier never notified customers about the practice, according to the lawsuit.

Frontier has said that the handful of customers suing the company got the Internet service the paid for.

In December 2015, Lincoln Circuit Judge Jay Hole rejected Frontier's request to dismiss the suit and force customers to settle their disputes through arbitration - a process that limits legal claims for damages to $10,000. Customers stand to gain significantly more in damages through a jury verdict or settlement.

Frontier appealed Hoke's ruling to the Supreme Court.

The Hurricane law firm Klein, Sheridan & Glazer and the Charleston law firm Bailey & Glasser are representing Frontier's customers.

Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.

Nicholas County Circuit Judge Stephen Callaghan could have faced additional ethics charges over his campaign tactics, disciplinary lawyers told judges at the West Virginia Supreme Court on Tuesday.

But Callaghan's lawyer argued Tuesday that the Judicial Investigation Commission and Judicial Hearing Board acted outside their jurisdiction when it came to charging Callaghan, as he wasn't yet a judge when the ethics violations allegedly occurred.

Lawyers for the JIC are asking the Supreme Court to suspend Callaghan as judge for two years because of his alleged use of shady campaign tactics during his race against longtime Nicholas Circuit Judge Gary Johnson. State Judicial Hearing Board members have recommended Callaghan's law license be suspended for a year and, then after that year, that he be suspended without pay for a year from taking the oath of judicial office. The disciplinary lawyers also want Callaghan to be fined $2,500.

Callaghan defeated Johnson in last year's nonpartisan primary election and was sworn into office earlier this month.

Johnson was named Supreme Court administrator earlier this month to replace Steve Canterbury. Because of Johnson's new position, the five justices stepped away from Callaghan's ethics case.

Retired Justice Thomas McHugh was appointed to serve as chief justice. He appointed Kanawha Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit, Hampshire Circuit Judge H. Charles Carl II, Wood Circuit Judge Robert A. Waters and Harrison Circuit Judge James Matish, to also hear the case.

About a week before the primary, Callaghan sent out a flier to Nicholas County voters purporting to show Johnson partying with President Barack Obama. The ethics charges against Callaghan claim he made the fliers to "deceive voters into believing that Judge Johnson and U.S. President Barack Obama were drinking beer and partying at the White House while conniving with one another to kill coal mining jobs in Nicholas County."

Teresa Tarr, chief counsel for the state Judicial Ethics Commission, told judges Tuesday that during their investigation into Callaghan he admitted sending additional fliers besides the one with Obama.

Matish asked Tarr why Callaghan wasn't facing additional sanctions for those fliers.

"We had to move forward with what we had," Tarr said, adding the additional information was used in the charges against Callaghan as "aggravating factors."

McHugh said Tuesday that "the heart of the case" is the First Amendment.

Callaghan's lawyer, Lonnie Simmons, argues that his client's rhetoric is protected speech.

"The free expression of opinion and use of parody and rhetorical hyperbole in a campaign flier, as well as the truthfulness of the facts asserted therein is protected fully by the First Amendment," argued Simmons.

Tarr told judges that Callaghan's flier wasn't a parody or hyperbole.

On May 5, the same day the flier was mailed to voters, it was posted to Callaghan's Facebook campaign page, according to the charges. That night, a state disciplinary lawyer called Callaghan and told him she believed the flier violated state ethics rules.

The lawyer told Callaghan that if he took down the Facebook posts and ran radio ads to counter the negative effects of the flier, she wouldn't file a disciplinary complaint against him. She added, though that if someone else were to file a complaint, it would be investigated. Johnson's son filed a complaint against Callaghan on May 26.

Callaghan immediately removed the Facebook post that contained the flier and posted an apology. He purchased radio ads that ran eight times between May 7 and 9.

"If you receive a mail advertisement recently from Steve Callaghan, candidate for Nicholas County Circuit judge, showing Judge Gary Johnson visiting the White House, please understand that specific characterizations of the White House visit may be inaccurate and misleading and should not have been sent containing this inappropriate information," the radio ad stated in part.

The ethics charges against Callaghan stated that the idea for the flier was based on Johnson's June 2015 trip to the White House to attend a child trafficking seminar and a state Court Improvement Program. Rainmaker Inc., a consulting firm hired by Callaghan to conduct research on Johnson, discovered information about the trip in a news story and a news release issued by the Supreme Court. None of the information obtained by Rainmaker made any mention of Obama. Johnson has never met the former president.

Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.

A wreck on Interstate 64 westbound near the Dunbar exit shut down the interstate for about an hour Wednesday morning.

A wreck between a truck and tractor-trailer occurred at about 7:30 a.m., according to a Kanawha County Metro 911 dispatcher.

The road had reopened by about 8:30 a.m.

One person was taken to the hospital.

ELKINS, W.Va. (AP) - Two West Virginia men have pleaded guilty to a federal charge for unlawful gun possession.

According to federal prosecutors, 29-year-old Eric Wilson, of Coalton, has admitted to possessing a .32-caliber revolver in May, pleading guilty to firearm possession by a drug addict.

Authorities say 43-year-old Joseph Wayne Shipman, of Buckhannon, has admitted possessing several guns in December in Upshur County despite a previous felony conviction there.

Each could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

The Mountain Region Drug and Violent Crime Task Force investigated Wilson.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives investigated Shipman.

WELCH, W.Va. (AP) - West Virginia State Police say a former McDowell County teacher has been charged with 40 counts of sex abuse involving children.

Police tell the Bluefield Daily Telegraph that 60-year-old Anthony Harris, of Northfork faces charges from abuse involving one victim in 1985 and another in 2006.

Harris was a longtime teacher in elementary middle schools, and the children were between the ages of 12 and 15.

Trooper M.D. Brooks says the abuse occurred on school grounds. He says the investigation began after the first victim came forward and led to the second victim. Brooks said he believes there could be more victims.

According to the prosecutor's office, bond was set at $200,000 Tuesday and no defense lawyer was immediately assigned.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has won the first battle in a year-old lawsuit against the nation's largest wholesale drug distributor.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver ordered that the state's lawsuit against McKesson Corp. be returned to Boone County Circuit Court, where it was initially filed in January 2016.

The suit alleges that McKesson failed to take steps to stop massive shipments of prescription painkillers to West Virginia. The company shipped 112.5 million doses of hydrocodone and oxycodone -- both powerful painkillers -- to West Virginia between 2007 and 2012, according to federal drug data obtained by the Gazette-Mail.

McKesson wanted the case to be heard in federal court, where the law is typically more favorable to corporations. Morrisey's office successfully argued that the lawsuit belonged back in Boone County.

The suit had stalled in federal court with no filings between June and late December. The case is expected to pick up steam in Boone Circuit Judge Will Thompson's courtroom.

For the past four years, Thompson oversaw separate lawsuits against more than a dozen other prescription drug distributors.

Earlier this month, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen agreed to pay a combined $36 million to settle lawsuits filed by the state. It's believed to be the largest pharmaceutical settlement in state history.

A month after Morrisey filed his lawsuit against McKesson, the case moved from Boone County to federal court in Charleston. The drug company argued that the state's lawsuit included allegations that McKesson broke federal laws.

In his ruling, Copenhaver concluded that Morrisey's lawsuit contained accusations that McKesson violated state laws, but the complaint had only a "smattering" of references to federal law. The 61-page lawsuit mentions "U.S. laws and regulations" nine times.

The eight-count lawsuit charges McKesson with violating state consumer protection laws, failing to meet industry standards and failing to develop an adequate system to identify suspicious drug orders.

The suit alleges that McKesson "actions [in West Virginia] netted large profits, which the corporation used in paying bonuses and additional commissions to incentivize more business."

The state Department of Health and Human Resources, along with the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs after it was filed last year.

Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.

MIDDLEBOURNE, W.Va. (AP) - Authorities in northern West Virginia say a 9-year-old boy has died in a house fire.

According to media outlets, the fire was reported Tuesday night in an attic at a home in the Tyler County community of Middlebourne.

The Tyler County Sheriff's Office says the boy's body was found by firefighters. The boy's name wasn't immediately released.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

A man serving time in a maximum security prison in West Virginia allegedly sent a threatening letter, which included his bloody fingerprint, to a federal judge in Utah.

A criminal complaint filed Wednesday in federal court in Charleston charges Eric Jacob Riggs, 24, with mailing a threatening communication to Chief U.S. District Judge David Nuffer, of Utah. Riggs is serving sentences from Fayette and Mercer counties in the Mount Olive Correctional Center on charges of malicious assault and retaliation against a public employee.

The letter addressed to Nuffer, in Salt Lake City, was received July 28, 2015 and stated, according to the criminal complaint, "I am soon to be free and Im [sic] coming to see you! The last thing you will see in this world is the barrel of a 12 gauge shotgun! And any one who wants to get involved can be killed too ... This is your death certificate ... you have been served ... time is now clicking!"

The writer begins the letter stating, "My name is Eric Riggs," wrote a federal agent. The letter also includes Riggs' then-inmate number at Mount Olive, along with the prison's address in Fayette County, a federal agent wrote.

The letter included a signature and three fingerprints: two in blood and one in ink, Wednesday's charge states. A latent print analysis of the letter conducted by employees with the forensic laboratory of the West Virginia State Police reveals that all three fingerprints are a match to Riggs' right thumb impression, the filing states. Riggs' DNA also was found on the letter.

The charge filed against Riggs doesn't state why he allegedly targeted the Utah judge.

About three years ago, after receiving a threatening letter, Fayette County Circuit Judge John Hatcher recused himself from a case involving Riggs, according to the Register-Herald.

The letter Hatcher received stated that if Hatcher didn't allow Riggs, and another man accused in the stabbing of another inmate at Mount Olive to plead guilty, a person identified only by the initials "D.M.I." would put a "hit on him and the prosecutor," the newspaper reported at the time.

Riggs eventually admitted stabbing Joseph Blackburn at the prison on Aug. 22, 2011. A deal he made with prosecutors dropped an attempted murder charge when he pleaded guilty to two counts of malicious assault.

Riggs' retaliation conviction stems from a 2009 case in Mercer County, according to the West Virginia Division of Corrections website.

Riggs next parole hearing is set for Jan. 1, 2018. His projected release date is July 2027.

A date when Riggs to appear in federal court in front of U.S. District Magistrate Judge Dwane Tinsley hadn't yet been set Wednesday afternoon.

Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.

A Charleston man told a judge Wednesday that he'd taken quite a few drugs the day he left the Mardi Gras Casino in Nitro to rob a Charleston bank last summer, and then returned to the casino to continue gambling.

Kerry Johnson, 52, pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery on Wednesday. He faces between five and 18 years in prison when Kanawha Circuit Judge Duke Bloom sentences him March 2.

In their deal with Johnson, Kanawha County prosecutors dropped a felony robbery charge, which carried a possible 10- to 20-year prison sentence.

Johnson said Wednesday that "most of the day was a blur" on Aug. 2 of last year and, initially, he didn't remember leaving the casino to rob the City National Bank on Bridge Road in the South Hills neighborhood of Charleston.

"I knew it was me," Johnson said, however, after seeing himself on video from the bank.

Prosecutors told Bloom that around 10 a.m. on that day, Johnson got up from a blackjack table at the casino, put down a $25 chip to hold his spot and then drove to the bank.

Once inside, Johnson handed a teller a note, saying he had a bomb and a weapon. Johnson got away with about $5,000 in cash, assistant Kanawha prosecutor Fred Giggenbach said.

"He went back to the casino and lost more money," Giggenbach said.

In the hours after the robbery, police received an anonymous tip that a man who matched the description of the suspect given by bank employees lived on Churchill Drive near South Hills. When police arrived at the house, they found a green Mazda Miata, the same kind of car they'd been told that the robber fled in.

Johnson was sleeping on a couch inside the house. Stuffed between couch cushions, police found a large sum of cash, Giggenbach said. About $500 of the money taken during the bank robbery was later found at the blackjack table where Johnson had been gambling, according to the prosecutor.

Also inside the house, police found a yellow legal pad, similar to that the note presented to a teller had been written on. Giggenbach said Wednesday that Johnson's fingerprints were found on the letter given to a bank employee. A blue-and-gold West Virginia University hat, similar to the one the robber had been seen wearing, according to bank employees, was found inside Johnson's house, as well as a white towel, which tellers said, the robber had wrapped around his neck.

Johnson appeared in court Wednesday in an orange jumpsuit. He's been in the South Central Regional Jail since his arrest on Aug. 3, 2016, on a $50,000 cash-only bond.

Bloom refused a request from Johnson's lawyer, John Sullivan, a Kanawha public defender, to allow Johnson to await sentencing on home confinement at a residence in Pocahontas County.

At the time of his arrest, Johnson said he made about $10,000 a month, but that he was broke because he has a gambling problem.

According to court documents, information Johnson provided about his employment history states that he had owned his own marketing company for the past 11 years.

Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.

A woman was struck by a car Wednesday evening on Corridor G near Charleston.

The woman was hit in the southbound lanes between Wal-Mart and Moses Automotive Factory Outlet, Kanawha Metro 911 dispatchers said.

The victim's condition was unclear as of 9 p.m. Wednesday but dispatchers said she was taken to Charleston Area Medical Center General Hospital.

The South Charleston Police Department is investigating. An accident reconstruction crew was at the scene Wednesday night.

The crash was called in just before 7:30 p.m.

A woman was struck by a vehicle when she attempted to cross Corridor G Wednesday evening, and later died of her injuries, police say.

First responders reported to U.S. 119/Corridor G near Preferred Place at about 7:30 p.m. after a call about a pedestrian struck by a vehicle, according to a news release from South Charleston police.

Police say a vehicle traveling southbound had struck the woman as she attempted to cross the road. She was taken to CAMC General, where she died.

Police have not identified the woman.

Deputies continue to reconstruct the accident.

Police did not charge the driver and have not identified him.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has given lawyers for Don Blankenship more time to file a petition for the full appeals court to reconsider a three-judge panel's decision to uphold the former Massey Energy CEO's criminal conviction.

Blankenship's defense team now will have until Feb. 10 - eight additional days - to file the rehearing petition, the court said in brief order issued Thursday.

Defense lawyers said that they wanted to travel to Taft Correctional Facility in California, where Blankenship is serving a one-year sentence, to discuss the matter with him before proceeding.

Blankenship can also appeal the 4th Circuit decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. In December 2015, a federal jury convicted Blankenship of one count of conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards at Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine, where 29 miners died in an April 2010 explosion.

A lawsuit filed against the West Virginia State Police this week alleges a Wood County woman was the subject of malicious prosecution after she stepped in front of a trooper as he was about to shoot her dog.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Charleston, also claims that the State Police has insufficient training when it comes to interacting with dogs. The Animal Legal Defense Fund, a national nonprofit animal rights group, announced the lawsuit in a news release Wednesday. The group is working with the national sheriff's department to try to make canine encounter training mandatory, the release states.

Tiffanie Hupp, 23, of Waverly, was acquitted of misdemeanor obstruction last year after a jury trial in Wood County Magistrate Court. State Police Trooper Seth Cook filed the obstruction charge against Hupp after she stopped the trooper from shooting her dog "Buddy" in front of her three-year-old son.

Buddy, a Labrador-husky mix, who, Hupp previously told the Gazette-Mail, "is a big baby," was tethered to a tree and posed no threat to Cook, according to the lawsuit.

"At trial, Cook testified that his decision to shoot a dog, who did not pose any threat to him, was based on his training," the release from the animal rights group states. "This training has led to the deaths of at least 15 dogs in the state between 2010 and 2014, all killed by West Virginia State Police officers."

The incident was captured on video by Hupp's husband, Ryan. It gained national attention after the couple posted it online.

Hupp's stepfather, Clifford Myers, called 911 and requested police assistance after he had been arguing with his neighbor. Cook and his partner Trooper S.S. Michael arrived at Myers' house, which is located at 2395 Carpenter Run Road. After conducting interviews, he determined no arrests needed to be made over the dispute between neighbors.

Before the troopers left, the lawsuit states, Cook walked toward Myers' house, where Hupp and her toddler were in the front yard playing.

"As Defendant Cook walked towards the house, Mr. Myers' dog, named Buddy, barked at him," the complaint states. Cook testified at Hupp's trial that he wasn't afraid of the dog "because it couldn't reach him." Buddy was tied up and never within two feet of Cook, according to the complaint.

Nevertheless, Cook drew his weapon and pointed it at Buddy's head, the lawsuit claims. The trooper placed his finger on the gun's trigger. He testified, according to the lawsuit, that "he was following his training that mandates that he shoot any dog that approaches him."

"Control your dog now," Cook told Hupp, according to the lawsuit. Hupp ran toward the dog while saying "Don't do that," the lawsuit states.

Besides fearing for the dog's safety, Hupp feared her 3-year-old son would experience long-term psychological harm if he witnessed Cook shoot the family dog.

"Although Ms. Hupp may well have saved the dog's life, she was not entirely able to spare her son from trauma," the lawsuit claims, as Cook grabbed her, threw her to the ground, pushed her against the police car and arrested her.

Since the incident, Hupp's son has been afraid of police, according to the lawsuit. Hupp is suing, in part, to be able to pay for his psychiatric treatment. The lawsuit asks that the plaintiffs be awarded punitive damages.

Hupp, her son, and Myers, who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, are suing, in addition to the State Police, Cook and now-former State Police superintendent Col. Jay Smithers. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston.

State Police spokesman Lt. Michael Baylous told the Gazette-Mail on Thursday that the agency "is not at liberty to comment on pending litigation."

Animal Legal Defense Fund Executive Director Stephen Wells said in the news release that police should be given the tools to be able to interact with dogs without having to use lethal force.

"Police shooting dogs is a preventable tragedy in most situations," Wells said in a statement.

The lawsuit alleges excessive force, unlawful arrest and unlawful search and seizure-violations of the Fourth and 14th Amendments-malicious prosecution and negligent training of a police officer-in violation of West Virginia law-and the intentional infliction of emotional distress, battery and slander.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund is joined by University of Denver professors and lawyers John Campbell and Justin Marceau. Charleston lawyer David Schles, who represented Hupp at trial, also is one of the lawyers representing her in the lawsuit.

"It shocks the conscience that police would arrest and prosecutors would seek to incarcerate a woman who did nothing other than protect a dog from being illegally shot," Campbell said in the release.

Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.

A Putnam County teen was arrested Thursday after being accused of having meth at Poca High School.

Jacob McComas, 18, was charged with possession of crystal meth with intent to deliver.

Putnam sheriff's deputies first questioned McComas on Jan. 11 at Poca High School after he threatened other students on social media, according to a criminal complaint filed in Putnam Magistrate Court. When deputies searched McComas, they found crystal methamphetamine. Deputies believe he planned on selling to fellow students.

"As always, student safety is our primary concern," Putnam Schools Superintendent John Hudson said in a statement. "Putnam County Schools works jointly with law enforcement, such as the Putnam County Sheriff's Department, to ensure the safety of all students in our system. I applaud the efforts of our administrators and law enforcement and the great working relationship they have."

Anyone with information is urged to contact the Putnam County Sheriff's Department's Crime Unit at (304) 586-9846 or text "tips" to (304) 941-2300.

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - A West Virginia corrections spokesman said a Western Regional Jail officer has been fired after she was seen entering a cell where drug contraband was later found.

Brittney Branham, 28, of Louisa, Kentucky, was being held Thursday in the South Central Regional Jail on $25,000 bail.

A criminal complaint by the West Virginia State Police in Cabell County Magistrate Court charges Branham with bringing contraband into a correctional facility. It says that among the items found inside the cell were cigarettes, loose tobacco and rolling papers, a crack pipe and syringes.

News outlets reported that the items were intended for an inmate. The jail cell was outside of Branham's assigned area.

Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety spokesman Lawrence Messina said Branham no longer is a jail employee.

A Kanawha County public school system bus camera caught a video of a student almost being hit while trying to get on a bus in Dunbar around 7 a.m. Thursday, school system officials said.

The "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" in the video, as the vehicle nearly hits the child, is coming from the bus driver, whom officials declined to name Friday morning. They also declined to give the exact location of the incident.

Brette Fraley, the school system's executive director of transportation, said this was an illegal bus passing.

"It's sick -- it's sickening, that student could've been killed, and that's nothing I want to live with, that's nothing the driver wants to live with, and I don't think it's anything the community wants to deal with," Fraley said.

Keith Vititoe, the school system's security director, said Dunbar police are leading the investigation.

Vititoe said that preliminarily, it looks like the passing car was a green, late-model Ford Edge SUV, with 232 as the last three digits on the West Virginia license plate.

"Because of the darkness and the angle, that's probably the best we can do at this time to identify the vehicle," Vititoe said.

He said the vehicle looked to be traveling about 40 miles per hour.

State law says that in cases where the identity of a driver who illegally passes a bus without causing death or serious bodily injury is unknown, but the vehicle license plate is known, "it may be inferred that the operator was an owner or lessee of the motor vehicle for purposes of the probable cause determination."

But the law also states that in a case "where the sole evidence against the owner or lessee is the presence of the vehicle at the scene at the time of the offense" and no death or serious bodily injury was caused, the owner or lessee is only subject to a fine.

That fine is $250-$500 for the first offense, $500-$1,000 for the second offense and $1,000 for third and subsequent offenses.

Atop that, there are driver's license suspension penalties for the offense.

Fraley said he believes illegal bus passes still happen daily but feels they have been declining in Kanawha. But he said this was the "most disturbing video we have seen in years."

Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.