CHARLESTON — A Wood County man is suing the West Virginia State Police alleging he should not be listed as a sex offender in the state.
Col. Jan H. Cahill also was named as a defendant in the suit.
Russell Coble was charged and convicted in 2015 in military court for violating a since-repealed provision of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And in 2021, he moved to West Virginia from Ohio, where he previously had been required to register as a sex offender under the laws of that state due to the military conviction, according to a complaint filed in Kanawha Circuit Court.
Coble was required to register as a sex offender in Ohio. When he moved to West Virginia, he contacted the State Police in West Virginia because it is the agency that administers West Virginia's sex offender registry as part of the Sex Offender Registration Act.
Cahill is the superintendent of the West Virginia State Police, according to the suit.
Coble claims he contacted the West Virginia State Police and was sent a letter on Aug. 2, 2021, in which he was informed that he was required to register as a sex offender for life, however, he claims state code requires registration for a sex offender for any person convicted under a specific set of qualifying offenses.
Because the crime of which Coble was convicted does not require proof of the same essential elements of any qualifying offenses listed in the West Virginia code, he is not required by law to register as a sex offender in West Virginia, according to the suit.
Coble is seeking for the court to enter a declaratory judgment that because a conviction under the military code does not require proof of the same essential elements as any offense set forth in the West Virginia code, he is not required to register as a sex offender in the state of West VIrginia. He is also seeing costs and an order that he be removed from the Sex Offender Registry. He is represented by Jeremy B. Cooper of Blackwater Law in Aspinwall, Pa.
The case is assigned to Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number: 21-C-1201
