WEST VIRGINIA RECORD

CHARLESTON – Chief Deputy Attorney General Frances Hughes has silenced all who said she should file an annual financial disclosure statement.

She filed one. The West Virginia Ethics Commission received it March 1.

State law requires annual disclosure from thousands of state and local officials, elected and appointed, but Hughes had not disclosed her finances in three years.

Ethics Commission Executive Director Lewis Brewer said Feb. 23 that Hughes did not have to file an annual statement.

Brewer said the law did not require disclosure from anyone in the office of Attorney General Darrell McGraw Jr. except McGraw himself.

Hughes said March 1 that she filed a disclosure statement. It had arrived at the Ethics Commission that morning.

On the disclosure form she left 10 of 12 boxes empty except for check marks indicating that she had nothing in those categories.

Her marks show that she had no business name and no business interests above $10,000.

They show that she did not hold an elected office and the governor did not appoint her to a board.

They show that she did not sell goods or provide services to state or local government, did not earn more than $1,000 outside her job, and did not receive more than 20 percent of her income from a list of 36 industries and organizations.

They show that she did not receive gifts above $100 from anyone with immediate interest in her work, did not owe any unusual loans above $5,000, and did not have any unusual debts above $5,000 owed to her.

She filled in the first box on the form, giving name and address. In the employment box she wrote, "Attorney General Darryl McGraw E 26 E Capitol Complex."

She misspelled his first name.