The mother of a Mingo County commissioner entered a plea of no contest in Mingo County Magistrate Court on April 25 to one charge of false swearing in reference to a 2020 absentee voting application.
The charge against Judy Taylor, 57, of Matewan is a misdemeanor offense carrying the punishment of a monetary fine and/or incarceration. As part of an agreement between Taylor and Special Prosecutor David A. Wandling allowed Taylor to enter a pre-trial diversion agreement. This means charges against Taylor will be vacated upon the completion of a one-year period providing she commits no other offenses.
In the criminal complaint against Taylor, Wandling charges “Taylor presented an absentee ballot application to the Mingo County Clerk’s Office for Gary B. Canada Jr. Ms. Taylor submitted said absentee ballot application with the knowledge that Mr. Canada no longer resided within West Virginia making him ineligible to complete an absentee ballot application for the 2020 general election.”
As part of the plea agreement, Taylor waived her right for an indictment by a grand jury.
A sentencing memorandum filed with the court by Taylor’s attorney Robert Kuenzel states that, while the no contest plea carries the same weight as a guilty plea, it allows her to refute the charges.
“Ms. Taylor acknowledges that a jury could return a not guilty verdict,” the memorandum states. “Accordingly, in an attempt to avoid the costs and stress involved in a drawn-out criminal proceeding and in an attempt to avoid the uncertainty of the legal process, she voluntarily is entering into a no contest plea though disputing the claim.”
Also, attached to the memorandum as evidence before the court were three signed affidavits by Canada, Andrea Canada and Steven Chumley. Each of those stated they had requested Taylor obtain application forms for them, provided her with the information to fill out the forms and asked her to submit them to the clerk’s office because they were outside of Mingo County at that time. Also, in the notarized affidavits, each of the three states they gave Taylor their proxies to sign the application.
The documents in question were applications for a ballot and not the actual ballots.
During research of the 2020 election, the Mingo Messenger observed that Taylor’s son Mingo County Commissioner Thomas Taylor was not running for election on the ballot for which the application was filed.