A former Division of Natural Resources employee will lose his state pension after pleading guilty Thursday to a felony charge of misusing a state purchasing card.
As part of a plea deal, prosecutors dropped a 22-count indictment against the DNR worker's son, a third-year law student at West Virginia University.
David P. Smith, who had been an engineering technician with the DNR for 18 years, was sentenced to two years of probation, after admitting he misused a state-issued Visa credit card - also known as a "P card" - to buy an air compressor. Smith kept the compressor at his home in Jackson County.
West Virginia State Police arrested Smith in June 2013 after he allegedly tried to sell a state-owned man lift to undercover officers at a parking lot outside the Division of Motor Vehicles office in Kanawha City. He drove a state vehicle to the site of the sting. A man lift is a piece of heavy equipment that hoists a person several stories in the air.
Smith, 58, initially was charged with embezzlement and misuse of state purchasing card, both felonies.
The Legislature's Commission on Special Investigation's started looking into suspicious purchases made on Smith's state-issued credit card in 2013. A 22-count indictment alleged that Smith used state funds to buy a generator, pressure washer, compressor and other equipment for personal use.
Smith also used a state purchasing card to lease a pavement roller from a company owned by his 29-year-old son, Jordan Dawson Smith - and used state funds to pay his son $1,265 for concrete finishing work he never did, according to the indictment.
At Thursday's hearing, David Smith told Kanawha Circuit Judge James Stucky that he was pleading guilty because prosecutors agreed to drop all charges against his son.
"I'm just glad we're getting this over and that my son will be able to move on and graduate from law school and live his life," Smith said.
Smith was fired from the DNR after he was arrested. Smith told Stucky that he hasn't worked the past two years.
"All this property is in the custody of the state," said Ronni Sheets, Smith's lawyer. "The state is out nothing."
Kanawha prosecutors plan to send a letter to the state Consolidated Public Retirement Board, alerting the agency about Smith's felony conviction and recommending that he not receive his state pension. Sheets said Thursday that Smith would not contest the loss of his retirement benefits.
"His biggest concern was to try to protect his son from whatever could come from a [jury] trial," Sheets said.
Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.