CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The state Legislative Auditor would like greater assurance that the state Judicial Investigation Commission is thoroughly considering allegations that a longtime Logan County judge meddled with the local school board.

The Logan County school board president says the allegations — which include an accusation of a shoddily fabricated letter — are embarrassing to the county.

At the center of it all is 30-year Logan Circuit Judge Eric O’Briant, who was recommended for public admonishment last month for allowing the cousin of his son-in-law to handle cases in magistrate court without a license.

Speaking in a telephone interview today about the claims, O’Briant said, “I did not meddle in school board business.”

The latest allegations also involve Judge O’Briant’s family. In this case, the conflict kicked off after the county school board discontinued a contract for the law firm employing the judge’s daughter, Shana Thompson.

In a letter to the commission, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request, state Legislative Auditor Aaron Allred says more than a year has passed since he reached out to the Judicial Investigation Commission with concerns.

“Last July,” Allred wrote, “members of the newly-elected Logan County Board of Education approached me, after being referred by then-Governor Tomblin, concerning allegations of threatening and retaliatory conduct by Judge O’Briant.

“The individuals clearly feared additional reprisals from Judge O’Briant merely for raising their concerns. I explained to them that it was appropriate to pursue these allegations through the JIC and assured them that the JIC would investigate these allegations fully, fairly and carefully.”

MORE: Read the letter from the Legislative Auditor

A response to Allred from the Judicial Investigations Commission states broadly that the commission performs its duties responsibly and responsively but has significant confidentiality constraints.

The status of the Judicial Investigation Commission’s involvement remains unknown. In response to a FOIA request to that agency, counsel Teresa Tarr responded that, under state code, all documents pertaining to the investigation and deliberation of judicial ethics complaints are confidential.

Allred’s office had no such limits and concluded that it was bound by law to turn over to MetroNews and other media outlets — including WOWK-TV and The Charleston Gazette-Mail — its communications to the Judicial Investigation Commission.

The situation in Logan really kicked off on July 14, 2016, when the county school board voted unanimously to terminate its contract with Partain Law Office to provide legal counsel. The firm employed Shana Thompson, Judge O’Briant’s daughter.

A couple of months earlier, Thompson had been involved with controversy over a contract extension for superintendent Phyllis Doty.

At a Feb. 26, 2016, meeting, some board members asked who had put the contract extension proposal on the agenda in the first place, and Thompson said it was her at the request of board president Jim Frye. Frye died of brain cancer just a few weeks later, March 8.

When three newly-elected board members were present at a May 24, 2016, meeting, the board moved to reduce Doty’s contract from four years to one. Thompson presented a letter suggesting that doing so could expose the board to legal action from Doty.

“Are you our lawyer or her lawyer?” board member Phyllis Adkins, who opposed the contract extension, asked Thompson.

A couple of months later — with the three newly-elected board members and Frye’s appointed replacement on the five-member board — Thompson and her law firm were gone.

In the telephone interview today, Judge O’Briant said changing legal representation isn’t unusual when the makeup of the board had changed significantly.

“There was a change in administration. There were two or three new board members and they chose to go a different route,” he said.

The official action to terminate the contract for Partain Law Office was July 14, 2016.

Doty informed the board on July 14 that she planned to leave the position effective Sept. 30, 2016.

On July 18, 2016, a brief note seemingly on school board letterhead was sent to Judge O’Briant.

Normally, its contents wouldn’t cause an eyebrow to be raised.

Dear Judge O’Briant: On behalf of Logan County Schools, I would like to inform you that due to our current economic situation, we will no longer be needing the services of a Truancy Officer for our school system. Thank you for all of your efforts to work cooperatively with Logan County Schools to ensure the success of its students and employees. Sincerely, Phyllis Doty, Superintendent

When board members got wind of the letter they were puzzled.

“I was contacted by a colleague of mine on the board, wanting to know if the board had not funded a truancy position. This is something that had been going on for a number of years,” said Paul Hardesty, who is now board president.

“The board member asked me if we quit funding the positions. I said ‘You’re in the same meetings I’m in. We didn’t.'”

When Hardesty and the other board members got a look at the letter, the mystery deepened.

“The board was given a letter that was supposed to represent something from that superintendent. There was a document she had allegedly written from the board to the judge stating the board was not going to fund the position,” Hardesty said in a Tuesday afternoon telephone interview.

“We went through all the board minutes from the last three years. There’s nothing to memorialize that in the minutes or on an agenda. None of that took place. There’s nothing in board records.”

Judge O’Briant said he received the letter and didn’t question its legitimacy.

“I have the letter. It’s from Phyllis Doty, the superintendent. Ms. Doty has confirmed that she wrote the letter,” O’Briant said this morning.

O’Briant noted that, although it wasn’t his decision to eliminate funding for the probation/truancy officer position, it made sense because cases of truancy had been reduced significantly through new, alternative ways of dealing with students.

“That’s Ms. Doty’s decision, not mine,” he said today. “The truancy program had been in place since 2006 but our number of petitions went down from 150 to 8 because of diversion measures that were being used within the school board.”

O’Briant said the letter was part of a normal process.

“We had a phone call and she said I’m sending you this letter and the letter comes,” he said today. “I processed it and sent it on to the Supreme Court.”







There are some unusual aspects of the letter. Board member Debbie Mendez is listed twice on the letterhead. Phyllis Adkins, listed on the letterhead, was not actually on the board at the letter’s date. Then-current board members Jeremy Farley and Ed White were not listed at all.

Doty’s signature was stamped.

“Look at the letterhead. You write what you want. Look at the letterhead,” Hardesty said in the telephone interview. “It appears to be a bogus letter. We then went up and down the hallways of the board office and asked if any of the secretaries drafted a letter.

“No one in the board’s office acknowledged drafting the letter. The current board immediately thought the letter to be bogus in nature. I’m embarrassed by this whole thing.”

Hardesty elaborated:

“It’s embarrassing me to me to have a conversation with a reporter about an alleged bogus letter supposedly written by a former board of education superintendent. It’s just embarrassing because this is the board of education and it should be run in a professional manner.”

O’Briant said he’s certain the letter is what it purports to be.

“What’s she supposed to do? Hire a handwriting expert? Where does it end?” the judge asked.

The judge went on to say, “The letter was legitimate and sent by Ms. Doty. That was well over a year ago. Unfortunately a probation officer lost a job. She had a duty to act in the best interest of the school board. She sent the letter and I did what I had to do.”

The truancy officer whose job was being eliminated was Ashlee Collier, a friend of board member Jeremy Farley.

On July 28, 2016, Collier received a letter from O’Briant saying that three days later her position would no longer exist because of lack of funding.

Last August 2, Allred got a call from Farley and wrote a memo about the conversation. It quotes Farley as saying, “I believe Ms. Collier was fired by Judge O’Briant because she is my friend and as payback for the LCBE terminating the law contract with Judge O’Briant’s daughter’s law firm.”

Another call on August 5, 2016, came from Kathy Adkins, attendance director for Logan County schools. Adkins said she had been actively working on papers to seek renewal for the grant funding the truancy/probation officer position.

“The former school superintendent never spoke to her or to anyone else, to her knowledge, to inform her about canceling the truancy/probation officer,” Allred wrote in his memo.

The school board’s secretary, Melody Thompson, placed a call to O’Briant’s office, asking what was going on. Thompson had been asked if she wrote the letter zeroing out funding for the truancy officer position, and she was puzzled as anyone else. “I didn’t know what they meant,” she recalled in a telephone interview.

In response to Thompson’s call, the board got back a fax.

On August 5, 2016, someone claiming to be you called my office asking for a copy of a document. Please specify in writing who is requesting the document and which document or documents are being requested so that the request can be specifically addressed. Very truly yours, Eric H. O’Briant Chief Judge

“We just thought that was odd. Considering all of our phones in the courthouse have caller ID. That was kind of odd,’ Hardesty said.

Thompson was puzzled too.

“Logan is a small town. Everyone knows about everyone,” said Thompson, who has been employed by the school system for 37 years. “I did not respond to it in any way, fashion or form. I just put it in the file. I’m not calling back over there.”

By late last July, Allred wrote, the Judicial Investigations Commission was aware of much of what had transpired and two formal complaints had been lodged.

In a followup letter sent this July 14, Allred asked if he needs to take more formal steps:

“In order to investigate a) whether Judge O’Briant fired Ashlee Collier as a reprisal for the Logan County School Board’s firing of Judge O’Briant’s daughter’s law firm, and b) whether a counterfeited letter was submitted to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals Administrative Office by Judge O’Briant to defend his firing of Ms. Collier, does my office need to see that a formal complaint is submitted to the JIC concerning these allegations?”

Hardesty, the school board president, said the whole situation is a mess.

“This is an unfortunate situation,” he said, “and another black eye for Logan County.”

Judge O’Briant again reiterated his position that he has not improperly interfered with the board.

“I haven’t interfered in anything in the board of education,” he said. “I don’t have any reason unless somebody has filed a lawsuit, I couldn’t tell you and have never met the current superintendent of schools. I don’t have time to do board of education business.”