CHARLESTON, W.Va – A special prosecutor will be appointed in the case of Alyssa Middleton, the former Kanawha County EMT accused of killing a man with an ambulance, following the disqualification of Kanawha County Prosecuting Attorney Debra Rusnak.
Kanawha County Circuit Judge Dave Hardy granted Rusnak’s motion to disqualify during a hearing Thursday. Middleton is charged with voluntary manslaughter, aggravated vehicular homicide, and leaving the scene of a fatal accident in the April death of John Lucas.
She is accused of hitting him with the ambulance she was driving and dragging him under the vehicle for nearly two miles.
Rusnak filed a motion to disqualify herself from the case last month and cited a breakdown in communications with the Lucas family and threats against herself, Middleton, and investigators. She told Hardy on Thursday that she no longer feels like she can properly prosecute the case.
“I am simply at a point where I am unable to fulfill my obligations,” she said.
She stated that, as an Elkview resident, she is familiar with family and friends of both Lucas and Middleton. Rusnak explained that at the case’s onset, she began receiving numerous phone calls and tried to move proceedings along as quickly as possible while opening her office to the Lucas family.
“I have brought the family into my office. I have shown the family evidence—something that I would not ever normally do under normal circumstances,” she said.
Throughout the hearing, Rusnak described the response to Lucas’s death, specifically on social media, and the effect that has had on the criminal case. She feels as though she cannot impartially conduct her duties anymore.
“We have very angry people on one side and another set of very angry people on another, and I am tasked as the prosecuting attorney to kind of wear that ‘white hat.’ I am not supposed to choose a side,” she said.
Hardy asked Rusnak to describe some of the incidents with the Lucas family described in her motion, particularly confrontations with Lucas’s father, David Lucas, and his sister, Lora Jett.
Rusnak detailed comments she claimed that David Lucas made to her following a hearing that she interpreted as demanding she secure a conviction by any means necessary.
“The victim’s father indicated that he expected me to do whatever it took to ‘bend the law, break the law, do whatever you have to do’ to get a conviction,” Rusnak said.
Chelsea Kincaid, Rusnak’s executive assistant, testified regarding an alleged confrontation with Jett in which she felt she was being physically threatened. She explained that Jett confronted her following a hearing because she had not returned one of her phone calls.
Kincaid stated that she told Jett that she did not reply because she believed Rusnak had already contacted her. At that point, Kincaid said that she felt physically threatened by the way Jett looked at her.
“Looking me up and down. I took it in a threatening manner,” she said.
Following the confrontation with Jett, Kincaid said that she stepped to the side and Scott Summers, the Lucas family’s attorney, walked by soon after and expressed commiseration with her.
“He said to me, ‘I don’t know how you all do this every day,'” she said.
With Rusnak disqualified, the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Institute has been notified and will appoint a special prosecutor from another county to take over the case. Hardy indicated that would likely cause further delays to proceedings.
“If we have a new prosecutor, it will slow down the case. There is no question about it. You can’t ask a new prosecutor to walk in off the street and not get familiar with this case,” he said
A November 30 status hearing remains on the docket, but Hardy stated that it could be pushed back depending on when the new prosecutor is appointed.