A federal grand jury has returned indictments against Mingo County Circuit Judge Michael Thornsbury and County Commissioner David Baisden, both Democrats. The charges, and subsequent arrests, are the first major developments as a result of a grand jury investigation that started last year.
The indictment against Thornsbury is the most salacious, with details of romance and revenge, while the evidence against Baisden suggests that he’s a moronic petty crook.
Federal investigators say Thornsbury started an affair with his secretary (identified in the indictment only as “K.W.”) in early 2008. She broke off the relationship several months later, even though the Judge wanted her to leave her husband.
K.W. declined and, according to the indictment, Thornsbury used his position to try to get his paramour’s husband, (identified only as “R.W.”) arrested and thrown in jail.
Thornsbury tried talking a friend, Jeff Cline, into planting drugs in R.W.’s vehicle and tipping off the police. The indictment says the Judge theorized that if R.W. got busted, K.W. would, out of financial necessity, resume her relationship with him.
That didn’t work because Cline didn’t plant the drugs.
Then, the feds charge, Thornsbury talked State Trooper Brandon Moore into filing a false charge of grand larceny against R.W. (The State Police have suspended Moore.) After that, the Judge arranged for Jarrod Fletcher, a friend and business partner, who is also the Mingo County Director of Homeland Security, to be the foreman on a grand jury.
The indictment says Thornsbury used Fletcher to sign off on purported subpoenas to obtain documents from R.W.’s employer that the Judge planned to use to bring a grand jury charge against R.W.
Three years later, R.W. got into an argument outside a convenience store with two other men and one of them drew a gun. Charges were dropped against the two, but federal investigators say Judge Thornsbury, through a messenger, told the Mingo County prosecutor to make sure R.W. went to jail.
Good Lord. Why would a circuit judge repeatedly bend the law to his will, and drag others along with him, because of some obscure hope of reuniting with a married woman with whom he had had a brief affair?
Baisden is accused of trying to shake down a Mingo County tire dealer. The indictment says Baisden took the county tire business away from Appalachian Tire because the company would not give Baisden the same discounted price on his private purchase that the county government received.
Incredibly, Baisden allegedly left the threat on the Appalachian store manager’s voice mail, thus establishing himself as a true novice extortionist. Perhaps that will work in his favor.
These charges, while serious and disturbing, leave you wondering if that’s all. There are lots more rumors flowing out of Mingo County about corruption that are not addressed in the indictments.
Perhaps they are just embellishments that have grown out of the investigation, or maybe the grand jury has more work ahead of it.
In the meantime, however, it’s encouraging to see that U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin’s team is taking seriously the violations of public trust.