An assistant U.S. attorney from Kentucky has been appointed to work as a special prosecutor in West Virginia's Southern District to investigate the Belle police chief.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth R. Taylor, of Kentucky's Eastern District, will assist with "the investigation and potential prosecution" of Belle's police chief Darrick Cox, according to an affidavit written by Taylor and filed in federal court last week.
A four-page appointment affidavit was filed publicly for Taylor in Charleston on Thursday. The last page of the document included Cox's name.
By Friday evening, though, the page of the affidavit with Cox's name, titled "Statement of Appointment Conditions," had been removed from public view without explanation.
The document didn't include any information about what the investigation concerns.
Taylor's appointment in the Southern District of West Virginia began Dec. 2 and is effective until Dec. 1, 2017, unless extended, the filing states.
A phone call made to Taylor on Friday was intercepted by Kyle Edelen, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Lexington.
Edelen wouldn't comment. He said Department of Justice "policy doesn't allow us to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation."
Clint Carte, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Charleston, declined to comment Sunday.
Cox's brother, Darryl Cox, works as an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Charleston.
Cox learned of the investigation for the first time Sunday through a Gazette-Mail reporter.
He said Sunday he didn't know why he would be the subject of an investigation.
"I appreciate the call, but I don't know," Cox said.
Cox became chief of the Belle department in 2008. He had worked as an officer in the town for about three years before former longtime Belle Mayor Larry Conley made Cox chief.
In 2007, Cox was charged with domestic battery in Kanawha County by South Charleston police.
According to news reports at the time, Cox allegedly struck a woman in the face, causing her face to swell and giving her a black eye. The woman told police Cox was an intimate partner of hers, the previous reports state, citing a criminal complaint filed in Kanawha Magistrate Court.
There was no record of the charge or the outcome of the case in the Kanawha Magistrate Court clerk's office Friday. A clerk said that typically signals a charge has been expunged from a defendant's record.
Belle's town council appointed councilman Glen "Buck" Chestnut mayor after Conley died in 2011. He was elected to the post in 2014.
Chestnut has known Cox for more than 10 years. He was unaware Sunday of an investigation into Cox.
"I will try to find out something. I haven't heard of anything," the mayor said. "As far as doing a good job, he does a good job for the town."
Reach Kate White at
kate.white@wvgazettemail.com,
304-348-1723 or follow
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