Three Charged With Armed Robbery

{Charleston, West Virginia}...Charleston Police arrested 25 year old Bryan April Pugh around 6:45 P.M. Tuesday afternoon and charged her with armed robbery. Police arrested 39 year old Edward Tinsley, 27 year old Angela Dawn Young and 26 year old Terrance Lowell Ramsey were arrested Wednesday night. Charleston Police say they attacked and robbed a man on Elm Street of West Side, Charleston on July 25th.

Judicial Hearing Board Considers Case Of Former Magistrate

{Charleston, West Virginia}...Wednesday morning, the state Judicial Hearing Board began considering the case for former Kanawha County Magistrate 75 year old Carol Fouty, who has already resigned from office. Fouty agreed not to run for office for four years and to pay nearly $6,400 in court costs. Fouty who had been in office for more than 26 years, has sent a letter to the Secretary of State's office to withdraw from November's election, even though her name may still appear on the ballot. The Judiciary Board will make a recommendation to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.

Protesters Released

{Hamlin, West Virginia}...Ten Radical Action for Mountain People's Survival, or RAMPS, activists who were arrested on July 28th during a protest at Patriot Coal's Hobet Mine in Lincoln County were released from jail Tuesday after pleading guilty in Lincoln County Magistrate Court. The protesters were each fined $500 for trespassing, about $160 in court costs and were ordered to stay off West Virginia mine property for a year. West Virginia State Police arrested 20 RAMPS members. They were sent to the Western Regional Jail and ordered held on $25,000 property bonds. Dustin Steele, 21, was released early last week after supporters raised enough money to pay his bail. Nine protesters were released Friday.

Patriot Coal Bankruptcy Protection Approved

St. Louis-based Patriot Coal Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 9th. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley C. Chapman, a bankruptcy judge in New York, has approved an $802 million financing package for Patriot to continue operations as it restructures, to continue paying wages and providing benefits to employees and use existing customer programs. Patriot said Monday that its mining operations and coal shipments are continuing. Chairman and CEO Irl F. Englehardt says the company is continuing to identify changes needed to ensure its viability. Patriot Coal operates mines in West Virginia and Kentucky.

Missing Swimmer's Body Found

{Gauley Bridge, West Virginia}...Forty-seven year old David Jones of Powellton disappeared Saturday night while swimming with a group of people in the Kanawha Falls area near Gauley Bridge after he tried to swim across the Kanawha River. Tuesday afternoon, Jones' body was recovered about one mile downstream from where he was last seen.

Woman Pleads Guilty To Drug Charge

{Huntington, West Virginia}...Tanya Harden, whose murder conviction was overturned by the West Virginia Supreme Court, was in court Tuesday where she pleaded guilty to a drug charge. Harden was convicted in 2007 of murder in the 2004 shooting death of her husband, Danual Harden, who was murdered while he was asleep at their home in Culloden. Harden claimed she had been abused, and she killed her husband in self defense. Harden said she feared for her life after a night of violent beatings that left her nose broken and face black and blue, but a jury found her guilty of first-degree murder. In June 2009, the court ruled there was evidence of abuse, and she was released from prison. In August 2011, Harden was arrested during a warrant roundup in Cabell County and charged with trying to obtain prescription medications under false pretenses. She will be sentenced in October.

DNA Testing Denied For Convicted Killer

{Charleston, West Virginia}...Kanawha Circuit Judge James C. Stucky has refused to allow DNA testing for Kenneth Eugene Carter, a West Side Charleston man convicted of beating his roommate, Ronald Forton, to death with a baseball bat. After being sentenced to life in prison earlier this year on a charge of first-degree murder, Carter asked Judge Stucky to force prosecutors to test 20 DNA swabs that investigators had collected at Forton's home at 207 Beurhing Avenue. During Carter's trial in March, his attorneys argued that DNA tests of the murder weapon, a bloody shirt found in the bathroom and on a toilet seat could not be conclusively linked to Carter.