you may recall the west virginia judge who was featured in the traffic stop body cam footage which resulted in the filing of formal judicial disciplinary litigation against him which i've previously posted about and made a video about and it had to do with his behavior during the stop as well as after the stop that judicial disciplinary litigation is apparently being contested by the judge and is still ongoing but wait there's more believe it or not the same judge has now had a separate set of formal charges lodged against him by the west virginia judicial investigation commission and this is pretty much breaking news i don't believe this is out there anywhere i just obtained this today from the supreme court it was filed on february 14 2022 but just again released today so this is a second now formal statement of charges against the same judge judge williams from hardy county west virginia and contains allegations pertaining to of all things the walmart self-checkout process to refresh your recollection the first set of charges against this judge were filed on october 25 2021 after i found out about their existence i served a foia request on the moorfield police department because the charges reference body cam footage which obviously existed and that's where the incident occurred i requested that footage i ended up getting them and then i posted the relevant body cam footage of the judge on youtube of course so that the public could see it which is a necessary component of holding the government accountable for their actions that video as of now has been viewed 270 108 times and has 5.2 000 likes and 2 452 comments mostly appearing to be in condemnation and apparent disgust of the judge's behavior the new now second formal statement of charges against judge williams alleges that on august 18 2021 judge williams quote left the moorfield walmart without paying for 10 or so items in his shopping cart moorfield police chief stephen rigelman described the allegations in a police report where he noted that he arrived at walmart on september 13 2021 on an unrelated call and was informed that there was another incident which needed investigating the chief wrote that the asset protection officer at the walmart provided him with evidence involving judge williams the asset he wrote this the asset protection associate provided this officer with a training receipt and still photograph of an individual known to me as charles carter williams that's the judge this officer then watched video surveillance footage of williams utilizing a self-checkout register where he was observed scanning bagging and placing the bagged merchandise into a shopping cart williams is then observed pushing his shopping cart out of the store without making any attempts to pay for the items again this is coming from the formal statement of charges released today i've posted it in full on the website at thecivilrightslawyer.com so in case i misquoted anywhere all of this is coming from that document you can review it yourself and i encourage you to do so chief riggleman again he's the chief of the moorfield police department that's in the jurisdiction where the judge presides chief riggleman then wrote in his report that he notified the county prosecutor there hardy county prosecutor lucas c and reported the incident and he did so because basically the suspect was the local circuit court judge in the jurisdiction who he noted in his report was already under a judicial disciplinary investigation involving the body cam incident with one of his police officers the chief then noted that he decided that the best thing to do would be to contact judge williams and direct him to pay for the merchandise he lamented however in his report that this wasn't the first set of allegations regarding walmart self-checkout he wrote this it should also be noted that approximately one year ago a similar incident occurred with judge williams he put williams i put judge at the moorfield walmart where he and his wife had pushed out a substantial amount of merchandise without paying it was determined that neither party realized that the other had not paid for the items so that's what the chief wrote in his report in fact as this new statement of charges alleges the shopping buggy pushed out of the walmart in the earlier incident was actually valued at approximately 300 in that another individual was with judge williams when the incident took place apparently not his wife so apparently the investigators yes i like the word apparently apparently the investigators were aware of the first walmart mishap at the time that they asked him about it during his sworn statement during the investigation of this body cam incident which you were already aware of if you've been following this so contrary to evidence later obtained by investigators during that interview which we just sort of see now for the first time the judge sort of laughs it off and says yeah we uh we forgot to i forgot to pay for 52 dollars worth of goods and he noted at the time that his wife was not present but it was there was a lady he knew who worked at walmart she was present and that she still works there and he claims that we laugh about it so in the document the new document investigators note that the county prosecutor who had initially reported the body cam incident to investigators had failed to disclose that there was actually another walmart allegation which occurred only three weeks before the judge gave his sworn statement about not only the first walmart allegation but also the body cam incident and that investigators only found out about the fact that there was this august 18th 2021 walmart incident after the police chief disclosed it just a few days ago february 10th 2022 and i'll note that that they were down there the next day february 11 2022 interviewing the judge again that is fast turnaround so it also appears that the judge failed to disclos the judge failed to disclose the existence of this second walmart failure to pay incident to the appropriate authorities if you look at the document paragraphs 19 and 20 from these new charges are redacted as i receive them but they do state that the judge quote also never disclosed the august 18th 2021 walmart incident to somebody who's redacted obviously unnamed claiming that the judge was unaware of the august 18th 2021 allegations until the same day as his february 11th 2022 interview by judicial disciplinary investigators so in other words nobody the judge says that nobody advised him that he walked out of walmart on august 18th of 2021 without paying for his merchandise didn't deny it but he said that he didn't know about in fact i i today's the first time i found out about it but wait a minute so the judge apparently claimed during his in this this is a little bit difficult to follow but but pay attention here because this becomes more important really than the amount or date of walmart merchandise that wasn't paid for so follow this so the judge apparently claims during his february 11 2022 sworn statement and remember when there is a judicial disciplinary investigation against the judge they are obligated to provide a statement under oath and to explain and to respond to answer questions to investigators so investigators find out february 10th from the police chief that that yeah there was this other walmart allegation so the next day the judge is under oath so when he's under oath the very next day he said he had no idea that he had left walmart on august 18th 2021 without paying for merchandise he only discovered that the the existence of those allegations on the very day of this questioning february 11th to the contrary however local officials say otherwise for which there appears to be documentation chief riggleman noted in his september 13th 2021 report that he reviewed video footage of judge williams pushing unpaid merchandise and a cart to his vehicle at the moorfield walmart and that he subsequently contacted the judge directly and directed him to pay for the merchandise as i've already read chief riggleman also wrote in his report that the county prosecutor called him on a september 14 2021 and advised him that he had received a call from judge williams advising that he wished to pay for these items and that it was an unintentional mistake the chief's report is corroborated by text messages between the judge and the prosecutor which were obtained by judicial investigators these text message now remember the walmart incident the second one august 18th 2021 the the the text messages that we're about to talk about september 16th and 17th of 2021 okay so there's text between the judge and prosecutor i have these up on the website the most recent posting if you want to read them i'll put the link in the description so judge is talking to the prosecutor if you could get that amount from the walmart who he's talking about is the walmart asset protection associate if you could get that amount tomorrow i'd really appreciate it thanks so much the prosecutor said gotcha she was supposed to call me yesterday but i guess she forgot referring to the walmart asset protection lady i'll take care of it first thing in the morning then the prosecutor texts the judge again 42 dollars and 21 cents do you want me to stop by your house and get a check judge the judge says i have coveted so i'll put a check in an envelope on my wall there at my driveway i'm in a hearing so i probably won't have it there until around 12 30. if you could take it up there i'd really appreciate it the prosecutor says i can do that the judge says okay it may be in a ziploc bag i'll hand sanitize good before i handle any of that thanks a lot lucas the prosecutor says no problem with two exclamation points so the next day there's more text the texts continue between the judge and the prosecutor even discussing the name of the asset protection lady at walmart the prosecutor relates to the judge that the walmart asset protection lady wanted to communicate to him that she doesn't want the judge to be mad at walmart about this whole ordeal so two sayings come to mind where there's smoke there's fire and also sometimes the cover-up is worse than a crime you know trial lawyers often leave the most important question unasked at the end of an important line of questioning so when the evidence is so strong and the questioning is going well one need not even ask the final ultimate question because you know what the answer doesn't matter it's obvious we all know the answer and why give the person answering the questions or the person testifying why give them the opportunity to ex try to explain or give some other answer or some other excuse sometimes it's effective just to leave it sitting out there and that's sort of a tried and true principle of effective cross-examination that's sort of what this formal statement of charges seems like like wait a minute is this just about about goods not being paid for at the self-checkout at walmart or is this important this this fact that you have a judge testifying under oath that he didn't know about something and yet apparently you have a chief of police in the same jurisdiction and apparently the elected prosecutor the chief law enforcement officer providing or being involved in documentation that states explicitly otherwise that the judge did know about it and that sort of is like the last uh you know question that goes unsaid here and this is just very very very concerning and comes at a time when this judge already has pending judicial disciplinary charges against him so like the prior charges there were numerous rules of the west virginia code of judicial conduct which were alleged to have been violated and i believe the judicial investigation commission voted unanimously in this situation that there was probable cause to assert these charges against the judge here so the judge has now been served with this with these charges and he has a right to file responsive pleadings within 30 days with the west virginia supreme court so it will be interesting to see what the what the response is and make sure you follow along and i'll try to to provide an update at some point about what happens not only with these new charges but with with the older charges i think it's important to to follow up and not just you know it's too many times you read about something that happened and everyone asked well wait a minute what happened with that so it's important to follow up on things [Music]