CHARLESTON – Three former employees of a drug treatment center have been awarded unpaid wages, saying the owner obtained their services under false pretenses.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge B. McKay Mignault issued a memorandum opinion and order April 4 in favor of the three women – Jessica Halstead, Gena Elliot and Tabitha Adkins – in the bankruptcy case of William Warren Mucklow, who owned New Beginnings Drug Treatment Center Inc.
“Wages are among the most protected form of claims you can assert in West Virginia because someone has already worked and provided someone a benefit for which they are owed compensation,” attorney Travis A. Griffith said. “Unfortunately, many businesses obtain services from people and later discharge those debts in bankruptcy.
Griffith
“We are very pleased that the federal judge saw through Mucklow’s deception and awarded the plaintiffs their wages and deemed the debts nondischargeable.”
Mucklow currently operates sober living houses in Kanawha and Boone counties under the organization name Safehaven Homes. He also has a tax preparation business called U.S. Tax & Financial Group.
He also has a long history with the courts. Records show Mucklow and his businesses have been named as defendants in at least 20 civil complaints.
In 2004, he was arrested after he posed as a mentally challenged man and hired at least three home health nurses to care for him. In 2006, he pleaded guilty pleaded to two counts of battery in those cases for groping the nurses while he pretended to be a man with the mind of a 2- or 3-year-old. Two of the women filed civil complaints against him for his actions.
And in 2017, Mucklow was arrested for failing to pay at least 10 workers after he laid off more than 20 New Beginnings employees.
Halstead had won a $103,346.24 state court judgment against Mucklow and New Beginnings, and Elliot obtained a $3,000 judgment. But Mucklow then filed for bankruptcy, leading Halstead and Elliot to file adversary proceedings in federal court to deem the debts nondischargeable based on Mucklow’s conduct. Adkins then filed her own adversary proceedings claiming lost wages and was awarded $24,943.50 in federal court. All of the debts were declared nondischargeable.
According to court filings, Mucklow filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy on October 10, 2019. His Chapter 7 discharge was received June 21, 2022, but he has not been discharged from these debts.
Halstead left a position at Thomas Memorial Hospital to work for New Beginnings in early 2017. She was promised a salary of $90,000, but her paychecks didn’t reflect that. She says wasn’t paid almost $52,000.
Adkins joined New Beginnings soon after Halstead, and she was promised $25 per hour. She was paid a total of three times from April 2017 to December 2017. She said she didn’t receive almost $12,500 in pay.
Elliot joined New Beginnings in May 2017 at a rate of $10 per hour. She says she also was paid only three times and was shorted about $1,500.
In February 2019, all three women filed civil complaints in Kanawha Circuit Court against Mucklow and New Beginnings. Halstead and Elliot were awarded their default judgments in April 2019 totaling more than $106,000.
When Halstead and Elliot tried to collect their judgments, Mucklow failed to appear for a deposition. He then was held in contempt and ordered to appear in person for a hearing. When he didn’t show for that hearing, he was arrested and held until he completed the deposition.
In October 2019, he filed for bankruptcy.
“(Mucklow) has a clear history of deceptive practices, both financial and otherwise,” Mignault wrote in the opinion. “His testimony often contradicted itself, and he very rarely answered questions clearly and concisely, which this court considers a hallmark of truthfulness.
“It is inconceivable that this court would take word of an individual who, having two misdemeanor battery convictions on the criminal record, would answer in the negative when asked on an official form if he had either felonies or misdemeanors in his background.”
Mignault wrote that Mucklow knowingly made false representations and that the plaintiffs relied on those false representations that caused damages.
In the 2004 incident, Mucklow had posed as his mother on the phone to hire two home health care nurses to take care of her mentally challenged son who required care, including diaper changes. The women said Mucklow grabbed their breasts while they cared for him.
Both women filed civil lawsuits against Mucklow, one of them stating Mucklow “slipped up” and acted as a 40-year-old man, which completely upset and traumatized” the woman.
Mucklow posed as his mother on the phone to hire these nurses, saying she needed someone to care for her mentally challenged son. They also said he soiled his diapers when they were taking care of him
“He would want to lay his head on my chest, and he said ‘I’ll go to sleep if you let me rub your boob,’” one of the women said.
U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number 2:19-BK-20450