CHARLESTON — An attorney has sent notice to the West Virginia State Police of the intent to sue on behalf of three minor women who may have been filmed while taking part in the Police Training Academy.
Teresa Toriseva is representing the families of the three minors who intend to sue the State Police.
Toriseva said because the West Virginia State Police is the top law enforcement agency in the state, it has the highest duty and responsibility to protect all West Virginians and to preserve evidence.
Toriseva
"What is known so far is that a hidden camera or cameras were placed in the female locker room at the West Virginia State Police Academy Training Facility in Institute, West Virginia," Toriseva said. "All police officers in West Virginia must have attended training at the Academy to become certified.
“The investigation has revealed the female minors who attended the West Virginia Junior Trooper Program at the Academy used that same restroom and locker room during the time period the hidden camera or cameras were operating."
Toriseva said they expect many more to come forward as the matter progresses.
"The deeper the investigation goes, the more shocking the conduct," Toriseva said. "All the women who came through the Academy during the time the camera or cameras were being operated hope they were not filmed. With the admitted destruction of evidence, the burden is now on the West Virginia State Police to prove these women were not filmed."
In her letter sent on April 5, Toriseva noted that junior trooper participants are between the ages of 14 and 17 and they regularly used the female locker room at the academy while attending the junior trooper program.
"According to the now publicized anonymous letter sent to Governor Justice, the office of the Attorney General and numerous other state lawmakers on or about February 16, 2023, a hidden camera or cameras were placed and operated inside the female locker room at the State Police Academy," Toriseva wrote in the letter to Col. Jack Chambers.
Toriseva is representing three other current and former female Troopers who already have filed a separate intent to sue.
Four other women already have filed suit in Kanawha Circuit Court by attorneys Troy Giatras and Matthew Stonestreet of The Giatras Law Firm in Charleston and Ronald N. Walters Jr. of Walters Law Office in Charleston.
In a previous interview with The West Virginia Record, Toriseva said her firm’s adult clients are appalled by what happened to them.
“The level of outrage and violation felt by our clients almost can’t be measured,” Toriseva told The Record. “Each of them feel enormous pride in their service with the WVSP, making this gross privacy invasion even more devastating.
“The apparent alleged failure by top brass at the WVSP to protect their privacy from voyeurism in their own police women’s locker room is unacceptable.”
Giatras sent a similar letter to Morrisey and former State Police Superintendent Jan Cahill in February on behalf of four women who also used the women's locker room.
On March 1, attorney David Moye sent a letter to Morrisey and Cahill on behalf of Cpl. Joseph Comer, who was arrested in February on charges of felony strangulation and misdemeanor domestic battery in incidents involving a female state trooper.
Comer was arrested about a week after the anonymous letter was sent to lawmakers and state government officials.
On March 20, Cahill resigned from his position and Justice named Chambers the interim superintendent.
The State Police has been the subject of criticism and investigation in recent weeks following an anonymous letter making monetary and sexual allegations about the agency and troopers.
In the complaints filed last month, the plaintiffs alleged they attended the WVSP training academy and were secretly and intentionally recorded by a hidden camera or cameras.
Gov. Jim Justice has said the video recordings in the women’s locker room were made in 2015 by a now-deceased trooper and the 2020 destruction of a hard drive that included some of those recordings by three other state troopers.
Justice said the troopers discovered the thumb drive containing the video and that one of them “jerked the thumb drive out, threw it on the floor and started stomping on it.”
Former WVSP Superintendent Jan Cahill also confirmed that “the drive with the footage was discovered and ordered destroyed with no investigation.” He also said he was “troubled it was destroyed.”
The complaints accuse the defendants of spoliation of evidence, invasion of privacy, breach of confidentiality, violations of the West Virginia Human Rights Act based on gender, violations of the state Constitution for deprivation of rights, privileges and immunities, negligent supervision, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, violations of the West Virginia Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act and negligence.
The women say they have suffered anxiety, humiliation, annoyance, inconvenience, invasion of privacy, emotional distress, pain, suffering, mental anguish, loss of ability to enjoy life and other damages.