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Memorandum Opinion and Order
Pending before the court is the defendant’s Motion to Suppress [ECF No. 20]. The court held a hearing on this Motion on April 24, 2019, and ordered additional briefing. The defendant and the government have submitted additional briefs, and the matter is now ripe for review. For the following reasons, the Motion is DENIED.
Memorandum Opinion and Order
Pending before the court is the plaintiff’s Motion to Remand [ECF No. 8]. For the reasons that follow, the Plaintiff’s Motion is DENIED.
Memorandum Opinion
Pending before the court was defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment with prejudice for violation of the Speedy Trial Act. (ECF No. 37). The government filed a response in opposition to defendant’s motion, see ECF No. 38, and a pretrial motions hearing was held in this matter on March 26, 2019. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court GRANTED defendant’s motion insofar as it sought dismissal of the indictment but DENIED the motion to dismiss with prejudice. Instead, the court dismissed the indictment without prejudice. The reasons for that decision follow.
Memorandum Opinion and Order
Pending before the court is the Motion for an Award of Attorneys’ Fees and Expenses, filed by plaintiff Sanitary Board of the City of Charleston, West Virginia (“Sanitary Board”) on April 12, 2018 [ECF No. 42]. For the reasons stated below, the Motion is DENIED.
Memorandum Opinion and Order
Pending before the court is Defendants Robert Steven Tanner, A.S. Meadows, J.D. Johnson, and the Raleigh County Commission’s Renewed Motion for Summary Judgment [ECF No. 117]. The plaintiff filed a response [ECF No. 122], and the defendants filed a reply [ECF No. 123]. This matter is now ripe for adjudication. For the following reasons, the Motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. The principal legal question before the court is one of first impression in this Circuit: Does Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), bar § 1983 claims following a plaintiff’s successful completion of a pretrial diversion program? I find that it does not.
Memorandum Opinion and Order
Pending before the court are defendants West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority (“WVRJA”) and Brad Douglas’ Motion to Dismiss [ECF No. 32] and defendant James Chandler’s Motion to Dismiss [ECF. No. 34] pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Because the factual matter, legal standards, and arguments of these motions overlap, the court has decided them together. For the reasons discussed below, the Motions are GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.
Memorandum Opinion and Order
In 2007, the plaintiff, Samuel Ballengee, opened Tug Valley Pharmacy (“Tug Valley”) in Williamson, West Virginia, within two blocks of two notorious pill mills that were eventually shut down by government agencies. Customers formed lines outside of these pill mills daily before they opened. Tug Valley filled eye-popping quantities of pain prescriptions written by reckless doctors at these pill mills. In 2009, Tug Valley filled 42,115 hydrocodone prescriptions in a town with a population of only 3090. This was more than enough to give every man, woman, and child in Williamson a hydrocodone prescription every month of the year.
Memorandum Opinion and Order
Accordingly, and as explained below, the Court GRANTS, IN PART and DENIES, IN PART, Defendant’s Omnibus Motion (ECF No. 47), DENIES Defendant’s Financial Metrics Motion, GRANTS, IN PART and DENIES, IN PART, Plaintiffs’ Omnibus Motion (ECF No. 73), GRANTS, IN PART and DENIES, IN PART, Defendant’s Motion to Exclude Spoliation (ECF No. 63), and DENIES Plaintiffs’ Motion for Sanctions (ECF No. 71).
Memorandum Opinion and Order
On June 26, 2017, I rejected the proffered plea agreement in United States v. Charles York Walker, Jr. after determining that it was not in the public interest.1 On October 10, 2017, I rejected the proffered plea agreement in United States v. Antoine Dericus Wilmore after determining that it also was not in the public interest.2 In both opinions, I stated that it is the court’s function to prevent the transfer of criminal adjudications from the public arena to the prosecutor’s office for the purpose of expediency at the price of confidence in and effectiveness of the criminal justice system.
Memorandum Opinion and Order
Dr. Antoine Skaff used the privilege of a dental license to engage in thousands of individual acts of fraud charged by the United States as one fraudulent scheme. This case began in 2015 when an unnamed individual filed a complaint with the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (“DEA”) reporting that a high volume of patients were only briefly visiting Dr. Skaff’s dental office. In late 2015, the DEA referred the investigation to the West Virginia Board of Dental Examiners. During the investigation, the West Virginia Board of Dentistry received credible information that Dr. Skaff was improperly billing Medicaid based on an audit by Scion Dental, a provider network and administrator of the Medicaid dental benefits for the Managed Care Organizations (“MCOs”) under contract with West Virginia Medicaid. The West Virginia Board of Dentistry continued investigating Dr. Skaff based on this 2 information. On July 20, 2017, Dr. Skaff entered into a Consent Decree and Order with the West Virginia Board of Dentistry, agreeing to a reprimand for his inappropriate opioid-prescribing practices and his fraudulent billing practices, and to a suspension of his license to practice dentistry, among other conditions.