CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. (AP) - A former Shepherd University administrator is on trial on charges of using a state-issued purchasing card to buy more than $85,000 worth of handbags, perfume and other unauthorized goods and services.
A Jefferson County Circuit Court jury began deliberations Monday afternoon in the trial of Elizabeth "Libby" Shanton, 50, of Martinsburg following two weeks of testimony. Shanton is charged with one count of fraudulent schemes and 53 counts of misuse of a state-issued purchasing card, The Journal reported.
Shanton was indicted in 2013 on charges of using a state purchasing card 53 times between Oct. 9, 2010, and Aug. 2, 2012, to buy designer handbags, perfume, cosmetics, windshield wiper blades and other goods and services that were not for official state purposes.
Shanton's attorney, Shawn McDermott, told jurors on Monday in closing arguments that she was a scapegoat for a "liberal culture of spending" at Shepherd.
In her closing arguments, Jefferson County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Brandi Sims pointed to multiple receipts Shanton did and did not turn in to Shepherd's purchasing department as proof that she was being "willfully deceitful" and attempting to hide her alleged spending spree.
Circuit Judge David A. Saunders had collapsed all 53 counts of misuse of a state-issued purchasing card into a separate fraudulent scheme count. Saunders determined that the purchasing card's use was a continuing offense. But his decision was overturned in May by the West Virginia Supreme Court, which said the 53 counts constitute separate offenses.
The Supreme Court's opinion said Saunders deprived the state of its right to prosecute the case.