Justice Benjamin takes the stand in Loughry’s federal trial

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Former Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin capped off a full day of testimony in the federal trial of Justice Allen Loughry, recounting an ongoing battle of memos among justices over the use of state vehicles.

Justice Brent Benjamin

Benjamin didn’t quite conclude his testimony, so he’ll be first up on Friday morning when trial resumes.

Loughry faces 22 charges, including wire fraud, mail fraud, witness tampering and making a false statement to federal investigators. The charges have to do with his use of a state vehicle and state-issued gas card for his private travel as well as an antique state desk kept in his home.

Benjamin and Loughry served on the court together from 2013, when Loughry joined, through 2016, when Benjamin left.

They actually met each other, though, when Benjamin was first elected in 2004 and when Loughry was still a Supreme Court clerk, working first for Justice Spike Maynard and then for Justice Margaret Workman.

Benjamin told a story as he testified about those days, when he realized Loughry was using an antique “Cass Gilbert” desk as his work station.

“Wow, you got a  Cass Gilbert desk,” Benjamin recalled commenting.

As Benjamin remembered it, Loughry responded, “Yes, I’m very fortunate to have this. It’s very historical.”

That’s significant to prosecutors’ desire to prove Loughry knew about the historic and cultural value of the desk when he had it moved to his own home.

Federal prosecutors asked Benjamin if there is any policy allowing justices to have a home office, as Loughry has claimed.

“No, there was never such a policy or procedural practice,” Benjamin said. “Other than a computer or a printer, no.”

In more recent years and when Loughry was serving as a Justice, Benjamin testified, the court became embroiled in a controversy over what constituted the proper use of state vehicles.

Benjamin said his knowledge of the controversy began in mid-2016 when Justice Robin Davis proposed looking into vehicle usage and needs.

That suggestion erupted into a series of sparring memos from Davis, from the court’s security personnel and from Loughry, Benjamin recalled.

Jess Gundy, the Supreme Court’s deputy director for security, also provided testimony Thursday about those memos and the hard feelings that resulted.

One of the duties for Gundy and his boss, Art Angus, was to handle the scheduling of state vehicles.

Loughry would check out a Buick, Gundy said, without stating a destination.

“Allan never told us a location,” Gundy testified. “He would not tell us and refer back to the fact that other justices didn’t need to know where he was going.”

Gundy described those encounters as “generally pleasant.”

But one conversation turned dark, he said. “He said ‘It’s none of their effin’ business where I’m going.’ I was thinking he meant the other justices.”

That seemed to be about the time a memo from Justice Davis was distributed in August, 2016. It was labeled “Check out procedures for West Virginia Supreme Court vehicles.”

Gundy testified that Loughry called the security personnel and commented, “You guys aren’t going to throw me under the bus, are you?”

Justice Davis asked Gundy and Angus to write their own memo outlining the appropriate check-out procedures for state vehicles. Gundy said he wrote the memo because Angus was out of town. Angus called with some editing tips that Gundy changed.

Gundy hand-delivered the memo to the justices’ offices and, a couple of hours later, got a visit from Loughry.

“He wanted to know who wrote the memo,” Gundy testified. “He said ‘She wrote the memo, didn’t she?’ I told him I did. I just told him I was telling the truth.”

Gundy testified that Loughry raised his voice. “He said we should be ashamed of ourselves, and he left.”

Gundy testified that the last line of the memo was this: “The only person we can recall who failed to provide a destination when asked was Justice Loughry.”

For the next several months, Gundy said, Loughry would turn and walk in another direction.

But in November, 2017, Gundy testified, Loughry came asking for some assistance.

“He wanted to enlist my help to move a couch and desk from his house to the warehouse in Kanawha City,” Gundy said. “He went on to tell me he wasn’t asking me to do anything in appropriate due to the fact that justices are permitted to have home offices.”

Gundy testified that he, Angus and Paul Mendez, another court employee, helped Loughry move the couch out of the house that afternoon. That’s one that had been owned by former Justice Joseph Albright.

The big, heavy antique desk was moved later.

“It’s a big, old, wooden, heavy and ugly desk, I think,” Gundy commented from the witness stand.

The group had decided to first move the desk from inside Loughry’s home into his garage to avoid the gaze of neighbors. That took a few hours. From there, the desk was loaded into a van, driven to a warehouse and unloaded.

Controversy over the couch and desk also seemed to end Loughry’s desire to be in possession of a state vehicle, Gundy testified.

“He returned the keys after all this stuff about the couch and desk started to appear in the media,” Gundy said.

Thursday morning’s testimony began with the Supreme Court’s top financial officer describing how the court keeps track of mileage and gas purchases.

Federal prosecutors are trying to prove not only that Loughry used a state vehicle for his personal travel but that he received reimbursement from out-of-state conferences while actually traveling in a state vehicle and using a state purchasing card for the gas.

Loughry’s attorney, John Carr, tried during cross examination to question whether what might seem like basic records of gasoline purchases might be subject to human error or inconsistencies.

Carr asked about odometer readings that might jump up or down, about whether purchasing cards might be moved from state vehicle to state vehicle without an immediate note in the record keeping, and about how any one would know exactly who made a gasoline purchase.

“There’s no way to tell exactly who swiped the card?” Carr asked.

“That’s correct,” responded. Sue Racer-Troy, the court’s financial officer.

A couple of hours of Racer-Troy’s morning testimony was dedicated to reading off, line-by-line, records of where gasoline was purchased, the amount paid and the date and time.

As testimony resumed after a mid-morning break, U.S. District Judge John Copenhaver jokingly commented on the tedium: “I was really encouraged that you reached page 270.”

Federal prosecutors were up front with the jury during opening statements that some of the evidence they intend to present is dry.

But the prosecutors said the puzzle pieces will fit together over the course of the trial.

Counts 1, 2 and 3 are false and fraudulent mileage claims. Counts 4 through 18 are counts of wire fraud over personal use of Supreme Court vehicles and government fuel cards. Yet another count alleges a false statement about using a Supreme Court vehicle.

Among the first witnesses on Wednesday, the first day of testimony, were employees of American University’s law school and the Pound Civil Justice Institute who testified about working with Loughry to be sure he was reimbursed for his travel to events.

Another Supreme Court justice, Menis Ketchum, has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of using a state purchasing card while traveling in a state vehicle to a golf outing in Virginia. Initially, Ketchum was accused of repeating that over and over.





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