2023-11-03 04:12:55
(Graphic Illustration/MetroCreative)
CHARLESTON — A top state corrections official and the lead attorney for the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security have both been fired as the controversies continue surrounding missing evidence in a class action lawsuit over conditions at Southern Regional Jail.
A spokesperson for Gov. Jim Justice’s office confirmed Thursday that Brad Douglas, the former interim corrections commissioner and executive officer of the jails system, and Phil Sword, chief counsel for WV DHS, had both been terminated as of Wednesday evening. MetroNews first reported the firings.
The spokesperson also confirmed that evidence once thought to be lost or destroyed had been found and would be turned over to the proper agencies.
In a scathing 39-page order issued Monday night, U.S. Magistrate Judge Omar Aboulhosn recommended to U.S. District Judge Frank W. Volk that he grant plaintiffs’ request for default judgment against the state Division of Corrections and multiple county commissions in southern West Virginia.
Aboulhosn wrote that – in viewing testimony from an Oct. 2 hearing where state officials admitted to not following state and federal guidelines for evidence preservation – the testimony was both “remarkable” and “disturbing,” and could only surmise that the failure to preserve the evidence “was intentionally done and not simply an oversight by the witnesses.”
Aboulhosn singled out Douglas in the order. According to testimony from that Oct. 2 hearing, Douglas said he had not talked to the Office of Technology about preserving emails, cell phone data or text messages because he “didn’t think about it.”
“The intentional decisions to not preserve evidence, and to allow evidence to be destroyed was not done by low-level employees of the WVDCR but was perpetrated by the highest persons in the chain of command including the Commissioner of the WVDCR, Defendant Douglas,” Aboulhosn wrote. “… The recommendation of default judgment to the District Judge in this case, is extraordinary, but clearly warranted considering the intentional conduct in this case and other cases that came before …”
During his Wednesday virtual briefing, Justice, along with DHS Secretary Mark Sorsaia, said they didn’t believe losing or destroying the information was intentional. Justice did say that anyone responsible for such acts needed to face consequences.
“When people are directed to not destroy something or whatever it may be or supply something and then they just don’t, at the end of the day I think it would be a very, very, very long and difficult day for those folks,” Justice said. “If they have done what is alleged that they did do, then they have to be terminated. That’s all there is to it. And the courts will have to deal with it however they choose to deal with it.”
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