Bringing down the gavel on West Virginia’s courts
Around 2009, when I was starting West Virginia Watchdog, my first foray into the world of statehouse reporting, I made contact with a guy who wrote a book about West Virginia political corruption.
I wanted to seek him out and get blanket permission to use the book as a source when doing investigative reporting. It came in particularly handy when I started looking into connections between then-Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin and the seedy underbelly of Logan County politics.
That book was “Don’t Buy Another Vote, I Won’t Pay for a Landslide,” and the author was a law clerk for the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals named Allen Loughry.
That book gave me inspiration to shine a light on political corruption. It also gave me hope for West Virginia’s future. I believed then, as I do now, that the more access the public gets to workings of their government, the more the public can help keep government accountable.
From that first phone call on I maintained friendly relations with Loughry. I covered his run for state Supreme Court. He changed his party registration from Democrat to unaffiliated for the race, telling me he believed the judicial branch shouldn’t be linked to one party or another. When he attended a state Democratic Party event to hand out his pamphlets, party operatives kept taking them off the tables. That’s when he finally decided to run as a Republican.
Most people forget that Loughry not only was a Democrat, but he was a rising Democratic star. He learned at the feet of former Gov. Gaston Caperton. In fact, two of Loughry’s fellow Caperton staffers — George Manahan and Bob Brunner — were in the federal court chambers for closing arguments in Loughry’s federal trial last Wednesday.
Loughry worked for former 2nd District Rep. Harley Staggers, D-W.Va., and later for legendary Democrat Attorney General Darrell McGraw before joining the court as a law clerk for the late Justice Spike Maynard in 2003. All while earning four law degrees, including a doctorate (though there is some controversy over how much money the state paid Loughry to earn some of those degrees).
So, Loughry was a registered Democrat for well over 20 years before alienating himself from the party of Kennedy. A lot of this alienation was the result of his book — originally a dissertation — which made Democrats look like a party of corruption. He made a lot of enemies, including McGraw, which is why he left the attorney general’s office.
The state Republican Party welcomed Loughry with open arms. Why wouldn’t they? He was probably the most overqualified justice ever elected as far as academic credentials. Perhaps they should have looked a little closer. Perhaps we all should have.
The last time I spoke to Loughry was two years ago. He was the guest of honor at a summer camp I volunteer at. He spoke to the campers during their banquet. We had a good talk afterward and I walked him back to his car.
The only problem with that was in hindsight it wasn’t his car. It was a black Buick LaCrosse. The same one owned by the court. The same one he faced multiple federal charges for using for personal trips. The same for which he used the state fuel card.
The other day I was looking at the Supreme Court’s photo page. I was going through all the pictures going back almost six years and came across two pictures that stood out. One was a picture of Loughry’s young son. The other was a family photo of Loughry with his wife and son on their couch.
Both pictures looked out of place. These weren’t candid pictures taken by court staff. They were different. Then I looked up Loughry’s 2012 campaign videos and that’s when I realized the pictures I found were stills from the campaign commercials. It begs the question: why were these two pictures from campaign videos uploaded to the court’s photo page? Again, more signs that were missed.
I first started hearing of issues at the Supreme Court in 2017 after Loughry had the rules changed to become the court’s first four-year chief justice. I wasn’t a reporter at the time, so it’s not like I could start investigating, but I’ll admit to not believing the rumors. Not Allen Loughry. Not the guy who wrote about political corruption.
But as the fall of 2017 came and rumors turned into a story, then turned into multiple stories, then audits, the complaints, then investigations, and then charges, there was no denying that something wasn’t right.
I make no judgements on his guilt or innocence. A jury has already done that. The idea that because he is a justice and takes a state car automatically makes the trip official business? That idea is up there with the ancient divine right of kings or President Nixon saying when he does something it’s not illegal.
Then turning around and not reimbursing the state for the mileage and gas for taking a state car to two conferences, instead pocketing the money? He claimed he had no intent to defraud, but it should have been very clear those reimbursement checks should have been given to the state. Using the state car and fuel card for weekend and holiday trips? Come on.
Loughry spent a good deal of time refuting that the state desk he took to his home was an original Cass Gilbert desk, yet could only produce one witness — his retired assistant — who said the desks in question were never called Cass Gilbert desks. The government produced at least eight witnesses.
One of the prosecutors said Loughry’s “sense of entitlement caused him to abuse his power.” It’s apparent now that the court in general had this sense of entitlement, but Loughry will forever become the poster child for the court’s abuse.
Ultimately on Friday, a jury found Loughry guilty on 11 of 22 counts, innocent of 10 others and were hung on one. Sentencing will be Jan. 16.
Much like Loughry took a quote associated with President Kennedy for his book, I imagine someone will take a quote from Loughry when they write the sequel.
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