After just eight months on the job, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey's consumer director has resigned and gone back to her former law firm.
Michelle Gaston, who had headed the Consumer Protection Division since late January, returned last week to Steptoe & Johnson's law office in Charleston.
In her resignation letter, Gaston said she missed litigating cases, "as opposed to performing administrative duties" at the attorney general's office. Gaston, who made $105,000 a year, also commented she would have more time to spend with her family while working at her old law firm.
Other recent departures from Morrisey's office include investigators Gordon Ingold and Joe Crawford.
Ingold, who was Morrisey's chief investigator for the consumer office and public integrity unit, resigned Aug. 11 to take a job as a security officer for the Columbia Pipeline Group. Ingold left for a higher-paying job, according to his resignation letter.
Ingold started at the attorney general's office in September 2014. The job paid $45,559 a year.
Crawford, who also worked as an investigator for Morrisey's office, resigned August 21. He recently was hired as chief of police at Yeager Airport in Charleston. Crawford, a former police chief in Eleanor and St. Albans, said he was leaving Morrisey's office to resume his law enforcement career.
Crawford, who made $45,000 as an investigator with the attorney general's public integrity unit, started working for Morrisey in August 2014. Crawford will make $65,000 a year at the airport.
Also, the attorney general's press secretary, Jared Hunt, resigned from his post last week, just three months after taking a job as Morrisey's spokesman. Hunt, former Charleston Daily Mail business editor, starts Sunday as communications director for the House of Delegates. Hunt made $55,000 a year as Morrisey's spokesman. His salary at the state Legislature will be $58,000.
Morrisey's office has yet to replace Hunt and the other three employees.
"Whenever you have an office known for the quality of its work, your employees will be highly sought after by other organizations," said Anthony Martin, chief operating officer at the attorney general's office, in a prepared statement. "We are always honored when some of our employees receive significant promotions or obtain tremendous opportunities in the private sector or within state government.
"Our office has attracted some of the best and brightest people to state government, and we are grateful for their public service."
For more than a month, Morrisey's office refused to confirm the departures of Gaston, Crawford and Ingold. Morrisey acknowledged their resignations last week in response to an Aug. 26 Gazette-Mail records request under the state Freedom of Information Act.
In a letter Friday, Morrisey's office said the office had copies of the three employees' resignation letters, but would not release them to the newspaper, arguing the documents contained "information of a personal nature."
On Wednesday, Morrisey gave the resignation letters to the Gazette-Mail.
Gaston was Morrisey's first permanent consumer director since he took office in January 2013. Two previous employees served as acting consumer directors under Morrisey's watch.
Gaston's departure came three weeks after Morrisey issued a "Mid-term Consumer Protection Report." The Gazette-Mail had inquired about the division's performance days earlier.
In a press release, Morrisey's office reported that it recovered $112.5 million for consumers in 2013, $90.4 million in 2014, and $69.7 million so far this year. Morrisey bolstered those numbers by adding settlement funds from lawsuits against tobacco companies secured by former Attorney General Darrell McGraw in 2007. The tobacco firms pay the state in annual installments.
Tobacco settlement monies made up $62.7 million of the $69.7 million Morrisey reported recouping for consumers this year, $65.2 million of the $90.4 million in 2014, and $95 million of the $112.4 million in 2013.
Last year, 93 percent of the money and refunds recovered by Morrisey's office for consumers were the result of lawsuits and investigations initiated by McGraw, according to a Gazette-Mail analysis. In 2013, the number was 98 percent.
Gaston did not respond to request for comment Wednesday.
Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazette.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.