The following crimes were reported to the Charleston Police Department between Jan. 26 and Feb. 2:

East District:

Nancy Street 500 block, grand larceny auto, Jan. 26, 3:20 a.m.

Daniel Boone Drive 100 block, burglary, Jan. 26, 7:45 a.m.

Washington Street East 1200 block, petit larceny auto, Jan. 26, 8:32 a.m.

Lee Street East 1500 block, grand larceny auto, Jan. 27, 6 a.m.

Greenbrier Street East 1500 block, breaking and entering auto, Jan. 27, 6:45 p.m.

Charleston Town Center, shoplifting, Jan. 28, 5:34 p.m.

Washington Street East1600 block, robbery, Jan. 29, 2:20 a.m.

Virginia Street East 1500 block, petit larceny, Jan. 29, 7:30 p.m.

Bibby Street 400 block, breaking and entering auto, Jan. 31, 2:30 a.m.

Bibby Street 400 block, grand larceny auto, Jan. 31, 2:30 a.m.

California Avenue first block, petit larceny, Jan. 31, 8:30 a.m.

Washington Street East 100 block, burglary, Jan. 31, 10 a.m.

Irwin Street 200 block, child neglect, Feb. 1, 4:52 a.m.

Washington Street East100 block, petit larceny, Feb. 1, 1:53 p.m.

Clendenin Street 500 block, petit larceny, Feb. 1, 7:30 p.m.

Washington Street East 1600 block, robbery, Feb. 1, 9:10 p.m.

South District:

Venable Avenue 4100 block, burglary, Jan. 26, 8 a.m.

Virginia Avenue Southeast 5300 block, grand larceny auto, Jan. 27, 7:15 a.m.

Kanawha Mall, shoplifting, Jan. 27, 1 p.m.

Kanawha Mall, shoplifting, Jan. 27, 5:13 p.m.

MacCorkle Avenue Southeast 6500 block, shoplifting, Jan. 27, 7:07 p.m.

MacCorkle Avenue Southeast 4300 block, breaking and entering auto, Jan. 27, 8:30 p.m.

Roundhill Road 1800 block, petit larceny, Jan. 28, 5:01 p.m.

Carroll Road 800 block, breaking and entering auto, Jan. 29, 9:50 a.m.

Overbrook Road 800 block, petit larceny, Jan. 29, 12:09 p.m.

Payton Way 100 block, grand larceny auto, Jan. 30, 1:30 p.m.

Alex Lane 100 block, grand larceny, Jan. 30, 5:00 p.m.

Alex Lane 100 block, petit larceny, Jan 30, 8 p.m.

RHL Boulevard 200 block, shoplifting, Jan. 30, 8:45 p.m.

12th Street 400 block, burglary, Jan. 30, 11 p.m.

Chappell Road 900 block, domestic assault, Jan. 31, 12:40 a.m.

MacCorkle Avenue Southeast 6300 block, grand larceny auto, Jan. 31, 6:15 a.m.

MacCorkle Avenue 3900 block, petit larceny, Jan. 31, 11:30 a.m.

Chesterfield Avenue 5200 block, grand larceny, Jan. 31, 8:15 p.m.

Roscommon Road 100 block, burglary, Jan. 31, 8:50 p.m.

Kanawha Mall, breaking and entering, Feb. 1, 1 a.m.

Kanawha Mall, shoplifting, Feb. 1, 4 p.m.

RHL Boulevard 200 block, shoplifting, Feb.1, 4:30 p.m.

MacCorkle Avenue Southeast 3200 block, petit larceny, Feb. 1, 5:45 p.m.

Nottingham Road 1500 block, malicious wounding, Feb. 1, 10 p.m.

West District:

Chandler Drive, Wanton endangerment, Jan. 26, 3:05 a.m.

Delaware Avenue 500 block, petit larceny, Jan. 27, 6:42 a.m.

Delaware Avenue 500 block, breaking and entering auto, Jan. 27, 10:47 a.m.

7th Avenue 2000 block, brandishing, Jan. 27, 12:30 p.m.

7th Avenue 2000 block, domestic assault, Jan. 27, 12:30 p.m.

Costello Street 200 block, grand larceny auto, Jan. 27, 1 p.m.

4th Avenue 1700 block, petit larceny, Jan. 27, 3 p.m.

Roane Street 500 block, brandishing, Jan. 27, 6 p.m.

Russell Street 400 block, burglary, Jan. 28, 6:30 p.m.

Homer Street 1200 block, petit larceny, Jan. 28, 2:55 p.m.

Washington Street West 400 block, shoplifting, Jan. 28, 9:06 p.m.

Griffin Drive 1200 block, burglary, Jan. 29, 2:10 a.m.

Mary Street 400 block, domestic battery, Jan. 29, 6:15 p.m.

29th Street 200 block, breaking and entering auto, Jan. 29, 7:30 p.m.

Bigley Avenue 1600 block, shoplifting, Jan. 29, 9:04 p.m.

Washington Street West 1700 block, shoplifting, Jan. 29, 9:30 p.m.

Scraggs Drive 2000 block, malicious wounding, Jan. 30, 8:30 p.m.

Pennsylvania Avenue 1200 block, grand larceny auto, Jan. 31, 8 a.m.

Delaware Avenue 100 block, burglary, Feb. 1, midnight.

Delaware Avenue 100 block, grand larceny auto, Feb. 1, midnight.

Lilly Drive 2100 block, grand larceny, Feb. 1, 6:30 p.m.

Lilly Drive 2100 block, breaking and entering, Feb. 1, 6:30 p.m.

GRAFTON, W.Va. (AP) - West Virginia State Police are investigating two separate shootings in Taylor County involving law enforcement officers.

Lt. Michael Baylous said a person was fatally shot Friday when the Taylor County Sheriff's Office was serving a warrant and found the suspect inside a home with a gun.

Baylous said in an email another shooting occurred Thursday involving Grafton Police Department and a suspect with a knife. That suspect is in stable condition.

Identities were not immediately released.

A Kentucky woman tried to bring a loaded handgun onto an airplane at Huntington's Tri-State Airport on Friday.

The .380 caliber handgun was in the woman's carry-on bag, according to a news release from the Transportation Security Administration. It was fully loaded, including a bullet in the chamber. The woman also had an extra magazine loaded with six bullets in her bags, according to the release.

TSA officers found the gun at the airport checkpoint and contacted Tri-State Airport Police, who confiscated the gun.

The woman, a resident of Ashland, was not identified in the release. It was not clear if she was cited or arrested.

Three guns were found on people going through airport checkpoints by TSA screeners at Tri-State Airport last year. Ten were found at Charleston's Yeager Airport last year, and a Huntington man was cited for trying to bring a loaded gun onto a Yeager flight in the first week of this year.

A Putnam County man was in jail Monday after allegedly choking a female relative and punching a child.

Richard Brandon Gay, 35, from Bancroft is accused of stepping on the woman's throat until she passed out, and assaulting a child at a home in Poca on Jan. 28.

According to a criminal complaint filed in Putnam County Magistrate Court, Gay assaulted the female family member, choked her, spit in her face and bit her. A juvenile family member told investigators Gay also "clotheslined and punched" another child in the home.

Gay was charged with strangulation, child abuse causing injury and domestic battery. He was being held Monday afternoon at the Western Regional Jail on $50,000 bond,

Thom Kirk, general counsel of the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety and director of the department's Intelligence Fusion Center, will take on an additional role as deputy secretary of the department, MAPS Secretary Jeff Sandy announced Monday.

Sandy said Kirk will serve as the sole deputy secretary in the department, as part of an ongoing restructuring of the department and its agencies.

A Fairmont native, Kirk's 25-plus year career in law enforcement includes a term as State Police superintendent.

Kirk has also been director of the Fusion Center since its inception in 2008. The center assists federal, state and local law enforcement and homeland security-related offices in sharing information, expertise and other resources related to terrorism, other criminal activity, and other hazards.

Kirk is on the executive board of the National Fusion Center Association, a network of 78 state, regional and territorial fusion centers.

As a State Police trooper, Kirk conducted undercover and anti-narcotics trafficking investigations, and founded the Bureau of Criminal Investigations, serving as its first commander. Kirk also created the West Virginia Intelligence Exchange at the State Police, and became the first deputy secretary of MAPS in 1993.

Kirk has a law degree from West Virginia University, and has served as an assistant Putnam County prosecuting attorney and a special assistant U.S. attorney. He also had a private law practice and worked for Toyota in Putnam County.

An Elkview man said Monday, before a judge sentenced him to spend time in prison, that it was his prior drug use that caused him to post an anti-police rant online, in which he said "the only good cops out there are dead cops."

Matthew Lane Furby, 27, was sentenced to spend one to three years in prison after previously pleading guilty to making threats of terroristic acts. Kanawha County Circuit Judge Charles King handed down the sentence.

"It's just time that I just try and put this in the past, put it behind me," Furby told the judge. He had asked King to hand down a sentence of probation.

Furby's mother attended Monday's hearing and also asked that her son be given a chance on probation. She said before he began using drugs, Furby attended college and had a job.

"He got consumed with the friends and the drugs," she told the judge.

Assistant Kanawha Prosecutor Maryclaire Akers argued against Furby getting an alternative sentence, however.

The prosecutor then reminded the judge of what Furby posted on his Facebook page last July.

"Kill em all first, especially before they kill you while your hands are in the air saying don't shoot I'm unarmed," the post read.

In a video, Furby stated, "the only good cops out there are dead cops. Everyone load up and be prepared to go to war because if we don't take a stand now they'll kill us all. Rise up, fight for your guns and don't take no s---. Don't hesitate to fire because they won't hesitate to fire on you."

He also said in the video, "they rape women while they're handcuffed. Kill every one you see."

Kanawha deputies questioned Furby after being contacted about his Facebook page. He told them that he made the post "in retaliation and as a result of being angry with law enforcement," according to a criminal complaint filed against Furby last year.

After he was arrested, police said Furby spit on them.

King told Furby he must report to prison on Wednesday. He will be given credit for the five months he spent in jail after his arrest last year.

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

West Virginia Supreme Court justices refused to throw out the appeal prosecutors filed of a Cabell County judge's order that overturned the nearly 30-year-old murder conviction of a Huntington man.

Cabell prosecutors, through the West Virginia Attorney General's Office, are appealing Cabell Circuit Judge Alfred Ferguson's order in the case of Phillip Ward, who is serving a life sentence for a 1987 murder in Huntington. Ferguson based his decision on testimony from discredited former West Virginia State Police serologist Fred Zain.

The testimony Zain gave at Ward's trial had previously been "fully fairly and completely litigated," prosecutors wrote in their notice of appeal. Prosecutors have asked that Ward's murder conviction and life prison sentence be reinstated.

Huntington lawyers Connor Robertson and Rich Weston filed a motion asking justices to throw out the prosecutors' appeal. Justices denied that request Jan. 25.

Justices also on Jan. 25 denied a motion by Ward's lawyers requesting that Ward be granted bail.

Assistant Attorney General David Stackpole objected to the request that Ward be given the chance to get out of prison to await trial. If justices don't reverse Ferguson's order, Ward again will be convicted on the murder charge, according to Stackpole.

Ward has spent nearly 30 years in prison for the murder of Carol Carter inside a Wendy's restaurant in Huntington. Carter was a night manager at the restaurant and Ward was one of her employees.

Jurors in Ward's trial heard Zain testify that blood found on money in Ward's possession had characteristics of Carter and no one else. Zain testified that he was 100 percent certain of his findings. However, subsequent DNA testing by a different lab, requested by prosecutors several years after the trial, showed that there could have been multiple contributors to the blood stains on the bills.

Zain's body of work was discredited in 1993 by the Supreme Court, which found that the former head of the State Police serology lab gave invalid or false testimony or reports about evidence like blood, skin, hair, fingernails and semen found at crime scenes for more than 10 years.

Zain's work has resulted in millions of dollars paid to wrongfully convicted defendants. Zain was awaiting trial on fraud charges when he died of cancer in 2002 at age 52.

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

A St. Albans woman is in jail after she was accused of snorting methamphetamine in front of her children.

Heather Louann Stewart, 40, is charged with child neglect with serious injury.

According to a criminal complaint filed in Kanawha County Magistrate Court, a Kanawha sheriff's deputy was dispatched to a home on Browns Creek Road in St. Albans. Deputies found multiple pipes used to smoke meth inside the home.

Deputies said Stewart told them she had snorted meth earlier Monday in front of her children, who are all under the age of 7. A deputy also found marijuana on Stewart.

Sewer lines were also found running out of the home into the backyard, according to the complaint. Deputies said in the complaint that the inside of the home smelled of sewage.

Stewart was taken to the South Central Regional Jail. A magistrate set bond at $5,000.

ELKVIEW, W.Va. (AP) - A Kanawha County woman has been charged after a humane officer reported finding that more than four dozen animals did not have food, water, shelter and adequate medical treatment.

Media outlets report a criminal complaint filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court charged 25-year-old Melissa Bailes Anderson with animal cruelty.

The complaint accuses Anderson of not properly caring for 17 rabbits, 15 dogs, six guinea pigs, nine birds and two pigs.

A Kanawha Charleston Humane Association officer went to the home last month following a complaint about an emaciated dog. According to the criminal complaint, subsequent visits found Anderson had still not provided the animals with adequate living conditions, and the animals have been seized. She was charged last week.

It wasn't immediately known whether Anderson has an attorney to comment on the charges.

Several of West Virginia's Supreme Court justices on Tuesday seemed puzzled as to why the agency that oversees lawyers in the state wants a more severe punishment for former Kanawha County prosecuting attorney Mark Plants, who was removed from his post in 2014 after being charged with battery.

"What benefit to the public would it be if we imposed additional sanctions?" Justice Robin Davis asked a lawyer with the West Virginia Office of Disciplinary Counsel.

Plants has already been removed as Kanawha's prosecuting attorney, justices noted Tuesday. The ODC has asked that justices suspend Plants' license to practice law for three months over violations of the rules lawyers in the state are expected to abide by. Disciplinary lawyers have objected to recommendations made to the Supreme Court by a three-member hearing panel, which found that Plants should be only publicly reprimanded. A reprimand is more severe than an admonishment but not as harsh as the suspension or annulment of a law license.

Suspending Plants' license to practice law could deter other lawyers from similar conduct, according to ODC lawyer Joanne Vella Kirby. It's the job of the ODC to reassure the public as to the reliability and integrity of attorneys and safeguard the administration of justice, she added

"What could be more of a deterrent than losing your job and income, other than maybe being put in jail?" Justice Menis Ketchum said.

A three month suspension would financially ruin Plants, his lawyer Jim Cagle said Tuesday. Plants has his own law firm in South Charleston.

"He did give up his public office," said Justice Margaret Workman. "He's got to support his children ... I'm just thinking out loud."

Kirby corrected Workman that Plants was forced to resign as prosecutor.

The high court did not make an immediate ruling on whether to suspend Plants' law license.

Kanawha commissioners filed a removal petition and in October 2014 a three-judge panel ruled that Plants must step down as prosecutor for committing malfeasance in office and neglect of duty. Plants didn't appeal the removal order. About seven months later, two misdemeanor charges in Kanawha magistrate court were dismissed against Plants.

Plants' trouble began after his ex-wife, Allison, complained about him striking their then-11-year-old son with a belt to the point of leaving bruises. She was granted a domestic violence protective order, and a West Virginia State Police trooper from the northern part of the state was assigned to investigate.

Plants was charged with violating the domestic violence protective order shortly afterward, when he approached his two sons outside a Fruth Pharmacy. The boys were in the car while their mother was in the store when Plants arrived. Plants said he went to his sons for their protection, but the ODC argued he knowingly violated the protective order.

A second misdemeanor was filed against Plants by the trooper assigned to investigate the incident with the belt. Plants was charged with battery for leaving a 6- to 7-inch bruise on the boy's thigh. The criminal charges were dropped after Plants attended a domestic violence intervention program for 32 weeks.

Plants' actions amounted to misconduct, as they created a conflict of interest and interfered with his ability to serve as a prosecuting attorney, disciplinary lawyers found.

Plants and ODC lawyers went before the three-member hearing panel - Huntington attorney Steve Nord, Wetzel County Prosecuting Attorney Timothy Haught and layman William Barr - last May.

Plants did not object to the panel's recommendation.

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

The 62-year-old man accused of shooting and killing an unarmed teenager on Charleston's East End last year was indicted Tuesday on federal gun charges.

William Ronald Pulliam has been in South Central Regional Jail since last November when Charleston police charged him with the first-degree murder of 15-year-old James Harvey Means.

Means was shot twice in the abdomen with a .380-caliber revolver.

Pulliam wasn't legally allowed to possess a firearm because of a 2013 domestic violence conviction in Kanwaha Magistrate Court. The indictment unsealed Tuesday alleges he lied on federal forms to purchase the .380 revolver.

On July 30, 2016, Pulliam purchased a gun at Gander Mountain and allegedly made a false statement when he represented on a federal form that he had never been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, according to federal prosecutors.

The indictment also alleges that Pulliam possessed a .380-caliber semi-automatic pistol, "in and affecting interstate commerce" on Aug. 7, 2016.

The indictment charges Pulliam with knowingly making a false statement and representation to the information required on the federal form and two counts of the unlawful transport of firearms.

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

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey's office refused three separate times to file an antitrust lawsuit against the state's largest paving company, according to a letter from the director of the state Division of Highways' legal division to state legislators.

The letter was sent from Michael Folio, who heads the legal division for the Division of Highways, to Delegate Marty Gearheart, R-Mercer, and Sen. Roman Prezioso, D-Marion. Both sit on the Joint Legislative Oversight Commission of Department of Transportation Accountability.

Folio wrote in the 12-page letter that local law firm Bailey & Glasser provided a draft antitrust asphalt complaint to Morrisey and his office before it filed the suit against West Virginia Paving and several other companies in October. On three separate occasions over the past year and a half, according to the letter, the law firm encouraged Morrisey's office to file the complaint on behalf of the DOH.

"Bailey & Glasser told me that the Attorney General's Office repeatedly rebuffed the firm's invitation to file this historic and necessary suit," Folio wrote in the letter.

Folio also said in the letter that a lawyer in Morrisey's office told him the attorney general wouldn't touch the lawsuit until after the November election.

Three months after Bailey & Glasser filed its suit, Morrisey held a news conference to announce that he would file a new lawsuit against West Virginia Paving and other companies. He also chastised the DOH for not filing the suit through his office, saying that decision was "flatly wrong."

"Under our state's antitrust act, the [Division] of Highways has no jurisdiction - let me repeat that, they have no jurisdiction to bring an action for injunctive relief. That power belongs to the Attorney General's office and our office alone," Morrisey said in the Jan. 11 news conference.

The previous lawsuit filed by Bailey & Glasser was dismissed, and Morrisey's office issued a request for proposals from outside law firms to handle the lawsuit. But the case hasn't been given to any firm, even though answers to the complaint are due on Feb. 17, less than two weeks from now.

Folio and Mike Hissam, a lawyer with Bailey & Glasser, declined comment on the letter Tuesday night.

Morrisey spokesman Curtis Johnson issued a statement Tuesday night but didn't address whether Bailey & Glasser filed the case only after Morrisey declined to pursue the suit three times.

"We fully investigate matters. As such we don't simply take complaints prepared by outside counsel. We have a competitive bidding process that everyone must comply with and we will not deviate from that policy, as demonstrated by the fact that the initial complaint filed by the private firm was withdrawn and a new case filed," Johnson said.

He added, "Our complaint also fixed defects from the original filing to improve the state's chance of prevailing."

When Morrisey announced his office was taking over the lawsuit, Folio said, "We're grateful for the attorney general in finally deciding to proceed with an antitrust suit." He said at the time that DOH had been assured that its lawyers would help pick the outside law firm to handle the case for the state.

Folio's letter also suggests that Morrisey's refusal to file the lawsuit until January was politically motivated. He wrote that a senior attorney at Morrisey's office told him "we aren't doing a thing until after the election." Morrisey, a Republican, was re-elected in November after a tough and expensive campaign against Democrat Doug Reynolds.

A senior attorney also told Folio in October, when Bailey & Glasser filed the suit, that Morrisey's office "lacked the capacity and expertise" to bring the lawsuit, "and this conclusion was later affirmed by others in the Attorney General's office," according to the letter.

Folio wrote in the letter that the attorney general's antitrust complaint excludes a count of breach of contract, which carries a 10-year statute of limitations. An antitrust statute only has a four-year statute of limitations.

In a copy of an attached email from Folio to Edward Wenger, who recently joined Morrisey's office as general counsel, it was understood as of Dec. 5 that Morrisey's office would draft and file "an antitrust and breach of contract complaint" in Kanawha Circuit Court "in approximately one or two weeks."

But the complaint wasn't filed until Jan. 11, and it makes no mention of the breach of contract.

"In my opinion, the exclusion of the agreed count for breach of contract has unwisely and imprudently diminished the potential recovery for DOH as stewards for West Virginia's taxpayers," Folio said in the letter.

In addition, the attorney general likely knew about alleged anticompetitive behavior concerning Oldcastle Materials Inc., the parent company of West Virginia Paving, as early as July 2015, the letter says.

Oldcastle has been attempting to acquire the Pounding Mill Quarry Corporation, which operates four quarries in Virginia and West Virginia.

In July 2015, DOH officials met with members of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and a representative from Morrisey's office, to discuss the "potential legal strategy for the pending antitrust matter," according to the letter.

The letter also includes Folio's answers to inquiries posed by the legislative oversight commission following its Jan. 10 hearing, where members grilled Folio for answers about the Attorney General's involvement in the case.

"For unknown reasons, neither Mr. Wenger nor any Attorney General official was invited to testify at the hearing or, if invited, their attendance was not compelled," the letter says.

The letter notes that Wenger directed Folio to defer questions about Morrisey's involvement in the suit to the Attorney General's office during both the commission's January and December hearings. Yet no one from Morrisey's office spoke on his behalf at those hearings.

The antitrust complaint alleges the defendants illegally established market dominance through practices such as buying out smaller companies and then shuttering their asphalt plants, requiring other companies to sign non-compete agreements and threatening to cut off supply of aggregate and liquid asphalt to competitors.

It's similar to other lawsuits filed in October against West Virginia Paving and its sister companies. Charleston, Huntington, Parkersburg, Bluefield, Beckley and the Kanawha County Commission all are suing the companies.

Reach Elaina Sauber at elaina.sauber@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-3051 or follow @ElainaSauber on Twitter.

A man was killed and a woman was wounded in a shooting on Charleston' West Side Tuesday night.

Lt. Steve Cooper, Charleston's chief of detectives, said the woman was in critical condition after the shooting which was reported at about 6:30 p.m.

The shooting occurred on the 300 block of Garrison Avenue.

The victims' names were not released. No information on suspects has been given.

Police have not released any further information.

Charleston police have identified two suspects in a shooting that killed a man and critically wounded a woman Tuesday night.

Bobby Hall, 42, of Elkview, is wanted on a first-degree murder charge, according to Lt. Steve Cooper, chief of detectives for the Charleston Police Department.

At a news conference Tuesday morning, Cooper also identified a woman named Misty Rucker, and said she would be charged with murder as well.

A man was killed and a woman was wounded in the shooting, which happened around 6:30 p.m. on the 300 block of Garrison Avenue.

Cooper said Tuesday night that the woman was in critical condition.

A Charleston woman has been reported missing since Feb. 1, when she was last seen in Louisville, Kentucky.

Glenda Hawley, a traveling nurse working part-time at the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, was reported missing by her roommate Gina Brunetti last week.

In a phone interview, Brunetti said there have been no leads on Hawley's whereabouts since she left a restaurant in downtown Louisville called Wild Rita's around 9:15 p.m. on Feb. 1. Another nurse, Erin Cowell, was with her for dinner but they drove in separate cars.

Hawley lives in Kanawha City but has been staying at Brunetti's home in Prospect, Kentucky, for about eight months for the job.

Brunetti said Hawley's absence from work the next day immediately raised her suspicions because she never saw Hawley miss work prior to that. Brunetti added that all of Hawley's belongings are still at the house.

"I have been getting messages all the time about possibilities, like there was a deadly wreck, maybe that was her," she said. "But there has been nothing that has panned out."

Detective Doug Brooks of the Louisville Metro Police Department said the case is currently under investigation but would not comment further.

A juror in a murder trial who went to the scene of the killing on her own last year, causing a mistrial, admitted Tuesday she lied to a judge about being there.

Taniqra R. Payne, 32, pleaded guilty Tuesday to making a false statement, a misdemeanor. She was sentenced to spend a year in jail, but Kanawha Circuit Judge Duke Bloom suspended the jail sentence and put her on probation for two years.

Prosecutors, who originally charged Payne with perjury, recommended the probation as part of the deal they made with Payne.

Payne will pay the cost of the murder trial, according to her deal. Assistant Kanawha prosecutor Fred Giggenbach said he hadn't yet calculated the amount, but estimated it would be between $2,000 and $4,000.

The perjury charge Payne originally faced is a felony, Giggenbach said. He noted that while he believes prosecutors could convict Payne of the charge, he said she's been punished enough.

After prosecutors filed the perjury charge, Payne, a single mother, was fired from her job with the West Virginia Division of Juvenile Services, she said Tuesday. Payne also spent 10 days in jail after the charge was filed.

Payne was a juror in the trial of Tremaine Jackson, which came to an end after two days of jury deliberations last September. Jackson is accused of shooting Bryan Rogers to death in December 2015 near Littlepage Terrace on Charleston's West Side.

Jurors were beginning their third day of deliberations when Kanawha Circuit Judge Charles King told lawyers that Payne had been seen that morning where Brian Rogers was shot.

Rogers' father decided to go to the scene where his son was killed and saw Payne nearby. He took a photograph of her, the judge said.

Payne was brought into the courtroom that day and sworn in to give truthful testimony. She initially told the court she had not been at the scene of the killing, but upon further questioning, said she had driven by the scene and had spoken with someone she knew, according to the complaint.

On Tuesday, Payne told Bloom that she lied because she was scared. Her lawyer, John Carr, said that before speaking to the judge, Payne had not tried to hide that she had gone to the place where Rogers was shot.

"She was not in any way seeking to manipulate the court," Carr said Tuesday. "She was very open about it."

When Payne - who said she has a bachelor's degree in criminal justice - told her fellow jurors about what she had discovered at the scene, the foreman told her, "You're going to be in big trouble," Carr said.

Payne took an oath to serve on the jury for the Jackson case on Aug. 30. Part of the instructions given to jurors then was "Do not make a private investigation of any kind in an effort to inform yourself concerning any fact," according to a criminal complaint filed against Payne.

"I want to apologize for what I've done. I didn't mean to cause all this trouble. I should've been honest. I was scared," Payne said.

Prosecutors plan to retry Jackson on the murder charge.

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

A Logan County man was sentenced Tuesday by a federal judge to spend five years on probation for his role in a scheme that forced companies to pay kickbacks to obtain work at an Arch Coal mining complex.

Chadwick Lusk, 35, of Davin, pleaded guilty last year to "honest services mail-fraud." He admitted that he denied the Mingo Logan Coal Company of its right to his "honest services" by receiving illegal cash kickbacks in a crib block scheme. Mingo Logan is a subsidiary of Arch Coal. Crib blocks are used to provide roof support in underground mines.

In Sept. 2009 through at least March 2014, Gary L. Roeher, who owned CM Supply Co., paid Lusk a portion of the profits of the crib blocks that the Mingo Logan company purchased from CM Supply to use at Mountain Laurel.

Roeher usually paid Lusk a percentage of the crib block sales price. Roeher estimated he paid Lusk about $230,000 in cash kickbacks as part of the scheme.

Lusk's sentence, handed down by U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston, comes more than two years after 10 men were accused of taking part in the kickback scheme.

Johnston rejected plea deals for three of the 10 men in 2015. Johnston originally tossed out Lusk's deal with prosecutors but accepted in Tuesday, after prosecutors refiled the charge. Lusk was the only defendant disciplinary lawyers recharged, according to the court.

For someone to be convicted of honest services mail fraud, prosecutors must show that the defendant (an employee) had a fiduciary duty to the private-sector entity the defendant defrauded.

David E. Runyon, the former general manager at Mountain Laurel, pleaded guilty last year to extortion and tax evasion. He was the leader of the scheme, Johnston previously said, and was sentenced to 41 months in prison.

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

A Mason County homeowner shot a man who entered his home uninvited early Thursday morning, police say.

Mason County sheriff's deputies responded to 27777 Ashton Upland Road after a report of a home invasion, according to a news release from the sheriff's office.

Dale William Light, of Culloden, had been shot by the homeowner after entering the home. He was taken to St. Mary's Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition.

A second person fled by foot. Deputies continue to investigate.

A Nicholas County circuit judge elected last year was suspended for two years without pay by the state Supreme Court on Wednesday, citing his "egregious behavior" in running a campaign advertisement against his opponent that the court called "in every sense, materially false."

In levying the punishment against Stephen Callaghan, the court went beyond a punishment recommended by a state judicial hearing board. Retired Supreme Court Justice Thomas McHugh, who heard the case along with four circuit judges, wrote in the opinion that Callaghan's "conduct violated fundamental and solemn principles regarding the integrity of the judiciary. His egregious behavior warrants substantial discipline."

Callaghan defeated longtime circuit judge Gary Johnson by 220 votes, out of more than 6,600 cast, in last May's election. Less than a week before the election, Callaghan sent out a flier to Nicholas County voters purporting to show Johnson "partying" with then-President Barack Obama.

In filing ethics charges against Callaghan, the West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission claimed the fliers were meant 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."

In fact, Johnson attended a conference at the White House in 2015 on ways to stop child trafficking. Obama was not there, and the two men have never met, according to Thursday's decision.

The judicial hearing board recommended Callaghan be suspended without pay for a year for violating rules judges must abide by, and a year for violating the rules lawyers in the state are required to abide by, but said the suspensions should run at the same time. Lawyers for the Judicial Investigation Commission objected to the recommendation, arguing Callaghan's suspensions should run one after the other.

Circuit judges are elected to eight-year terms, so after his suspension ends, Callaghan would still be a judge until at least 2024.

Thursday's 72-page opinion also states Callaghan must pay a $15,000 fine, and pay the costs of the proceedings against him.

The states' five Supreme Court justices recused themselves from the case after hiring Johnson, Callaghan's opponent in last year's election, as state Supreme Court administrator in January. McHugh and circuit judges Joanna Tabit of Kanawha County, Robert Waters of Wood County, H. Charles Carl of Hampshire County and James Matish of Harrison County.

In a separate opinion filed Thursday, Matish said he would have suspended Callaghan for at least four years.

"The entire circumstance merits additional charges and punishment because, after reviewing the record presented and hearing oral argument, it is my opinion that the punishment is still not severe enough, because of the numerous violations that occurred with the so-called Obama flier alone," the Harrison County judge wrote.

Callaghan said the flier was speech protected by the First Amendment. He filed a lawsuit in federal court against the disciplinary officials accusing him of misconduct. Callaghan has asked U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston to put a stop to the disciplinary case against him and find that the ethics charges he faces violate his First Amendment rights.

Johnston last week put the lawsuit on hold until the Supreme Court made a ruling.

The flier wasn't meant to be taken literally, according to Callaghan. He likened it to rhetorical hyperbole or parody.

McHugh wrote, though, that the idea of a long-time, distinguished sitting circuit judge attending a function at the White House is something that could easily be perceived as a fact.

"Frankly, it is undoubtedly because it is so believable - and when viewed in connection with the purported hardships being experienced in Nicholas County, potentially incendiary - that Judge-Elect Callaghan and his campaign consultant found it compelling campaign fodder," the opinion states.

Callaghan "did not simply misrepresent himself or issues such as his own qualifications or endorsements, his professional competence, or his campaign's monetary contributions. Rather, he directly and methodically targeted an opponent with fabricated material and disseminated it to the electorate," according to the opinion.

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

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court refused Thursday to reinstate President Donald Trump's ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations, dealing another legal setback to the new administration's immigration policy.

In a unanimous decision, the panel of three judges from the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to block a lower-court ruling that suspended the ban and allowed previously barred travelers to enter the U.S.

An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is possible and would put the decision in the hands of a divided court that has a vacancy. Trump's nominee, Neil Gorsuch, could not be confirmed in time to take part in any consideration of the ban.

The appeals panel said the government presented no evidence to explain the urgent need for the executive order to take effect immediately. The judges noted compelling public interests on both sides.

"On the one hand, the public has a powerful interest in national security and in the ability of an elected president to enact policies. And on the other, the public also has an interest in free flow of travel, in avoiding separation of families, and in freedom from discrimination."

The court rejected the administration's claim that it did not have the authority to review the president's executive order.

"There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy," the court said.

Last week, U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order halting the ban after Washington state and Minnesota sued. The ban temporarily suspended the nation's refugee program and immigration from countries that have raised terrorism concerns.

Justice Department lawyers appealed to the 9th Circuit, arguing that the president has the constitutional power to restrict entry to the United States and that the courts cannot second-guess his determination that such a step was needed to prevent terrorism.

The states said Trump's travel ban harmed individuals, businesses and universities. Citing Trump's campaign promise to stop Muslims from entering the U.S., they said the ban unconstitutionally blocked entry to people based on religion.

Both sides faced tough questioning during an hour of arguments Tuesday. The judges hammered away at the administration's claim that the ban was motivated by terrorism fears, but they also challenged the states' argument that it targeted Muslims.

"I have trouble understanding why we're supposed to infer religious animus when, in fact, the vast majority of Muslims would not be affected," Judge Richard Clifton, a George W. Bush nominee, asked an attorney representing Washington state and Minnesota.

Only 15 percent of the world's Muslims are affected by the executive order, the judge said, citing his own calculations.

"Has the government pointed to any evidence connecting these countries to terrorism?" Judge Michelle T. Friedland, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, asked the Justice Department attorney.

After the ban was put on hold, the State Department quickly said people from the seven countries - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - with valid visas could travel to the U.S. The decision led to tearful reunions at airports round the country.

The ban was set to expire in 90 days, meaning it could run its course before the Supreme Court would take up the issue. The administration also could change the order, including changing its scope or duration.