Court: Counts against ex-Shepherd official can be prosecuted

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - A circuit judge wrongly dismissed 53 criminal counts alleging that a former Shepherd University dean of student affairs made unauthorized or fraudulent purchases with a state-issued card, the West Virginia Supreme Court said.

Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge David A. Saunders deprived the state of its right to prosecute the case when he erroneously determined that the charges against Elizabeth A. “Libby” Shanton violated double jeopardy principles, the court said Wednesday in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Brent Benjamin.

Shanton was indicted in 2013 on charges of using a state purchasing card 53 times between Oct. 9, 2010, and Aug. 2, 2012, to buy goods and services that were not for official state purposes. The purchases included designer handbags, perfume, cosmetics, windshield wiper blades and New York Giants men’s and women’s underwear.

Saunders determined that the purchasing card’s use was a continuing offense. He collapsed all 53 counts of fraudulent or unauthorized use of a purchasing card into a separate fraudulent scheme count, effectively dismissing them, the Supreme Court said.

The court said that the 53 counts constitute separate offenses.

The fraudulent scheme count alleges Shanton claimed on a monthly transaction log in 2011 that more than $85,000 worth of goods and services were bought for official state purposes, but the purposes were not official.

“The Supreme Court’s decision is a win for the citizens of West Virginia who have the right to prosecute these offenses against the state and we look forward to trying this case on all fifty-four counts,” Brandon Sims, Jefferson county assistant prosecutor, said Thursday in an email.

Kevin Mills, one of Shanton’s attorneys, said there was never intention to commit a crime.

“We think the circuit court was right. But irrespective of the Supreme Court’s decision to break the case down in to a series of unmanageable and unrelated component sets, we still believe that she will be vindicated,” Mills said Thursday in a telephone interview.

“This is just step one of probably 12 even stronger legal issues to come,” said Mills, whose partner, Shawn R. McDermott, argued the case before the Supreme Court.

A June 8 hearing is scheduled in circuit court to set a new trial date, Sims said.