After winning a West Virginia Senate primary election from a hospital bed, retired U.S. Army Maj. Richard Ojeda called for a federal investigation Wednesday into a brutal assault last weekend that left his face fractured in eight places.
"He tried to kill me," Ojeda said while recovering from surgery at Charleston Area Medical Center's General Hospital. "Somebody has put him up to this act."
Jonathan Porter, nephew of a former Logan County circuit clerk, was arrested and charged in the beating of Ojeda during a political cookout in the county's Whitman area on Sunday. The sneak attack knocked Ojeda unconscious, according to a criminal complaint.
"When you hit someone on the back of the head with a pipe, then lay them out with brass knuckles, you know he has tried to kill me," Ojeda said. "He tried to run over me after he beat me."
Tuesday night, Ojeda defeated state Sen. Art Kirkendoll in the Senate's 7th District Democratic primary, one of the biggest political upsets in Logan County history. Kirkendoll served as a Logan County commissioner for 30 years before joining the Senate.
Ojeda won Tuesday's election by more than 2,000 votes.
"Richard has done something that hasn't happened in a long time here: He's knocked off one of the big ones," said Joe Ojeda, Richard's 71-year-old uncle.
Richard Ojeda didn't find out for sure that he had won Tuesday's election until after waking up from surgery Wednesday morning. Doctors operated on his left eye socket, which was shattered during Sunday's vicious assault. Several plates had to be inserted. Both of Ojeda's cheekbones also were fractured.
"I believe what happened to me was politically motivated," Ojeda said. "I'm not saying my opponent caused this, but there's quite a few people in Logan County that I've stood up to and spoken out against who aren't happy about what I've done."
Kirkendoll has denied having any involvement in the attack and condemned the violence against his opponent.
Ojeda, a 25-year Army combat veteran who returned home to Logan County two years ago, said he trusts the West Virginia State Police and Logan County sheriff's deputies to investigate Sunday's attack. But Ojeda doesn't trust the "political regime" that runs the Logan County Courthouse. Not one bit.
He wants the FBI to step in.
"I want federal investigators in on this," Ojeda said. "I want outside eyes. I don't want to see this person walk free, and I don't want to see the person who put him up to this walk free.
"There's a lot of people connected to this guy who did this to me, people with influence. I want outside people to come in and interrogate this man."
Ojeda has spoken out against corruption in Logan County since retiring from the Army.
In Facebook posts, he has criticized Kirkendoll for allegedly accepting consulting fees from the County Commission after becoming a state senator.
Ojeda also has railed against Logan officials, including former Circuit Clerk Alvis Porter (Jonathan Porter's uncle), for their role in a coal mine equipment kickback scheme.
He has said the convicted Logan politicians deserved stiffer sentences.
Ojeda believes that Sunday's beating was designed to silence him and others who seek to expose corruption by the county's political bosses.
"This was an attack, not only on myself, but on others to keep quiet," he said. "I hope this does exactly the opposite of what they want. I'm sick and tired of seeing the people of my county walking with their heads looking at the ground."
In his hospital bed Wednesday, Ojeda clutched a teddy bear dressed in camouflage, a gift from one of his Army buddies. Someone had put an American flag on the wall behind the head of his bed.
Ojeda expects more threats now that he's defeated Kirkendoll, but he refuses to live in fear. Ojeda has served on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I am a combat veteran," he said. "I have written my will multiple times. I have faced the Taliban, and I have faced al-Qaida.
"I am not going to come back here and fear these people. I'm not going to bow down to someone who walks with their heads in the clouds while he walks on the backs of better men, and that's what we have down here."
Ojeda vows to "rattle chains" and be a "thorn in the side" of corrupt politicians in the coming months. He's expected to defeat his Republican opponent and be elected to the state Senate in November.
"I spent years in Iraq, fighting for the people's right to freedom, and I come home to my little town in West Virginia and see miniature Saddam Husseins all over the place," Ojeda said. "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to sit back and take it. I won't."
Still, his family worries about his safety.
"He's Logan County's Buford Pusser," said Joe Ojeda, referring to the legendary sheriff whose efforts to crack down on crime and corruption in Tennessee in the late 1960s spawned several books and movies. "But I'm not sure that's a good thing."
Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.