A Putnam County magistrate agreed Monday to dismiss battery and domestic battery charges against a former West Virginia Department of Education official who had been accused of trying to strangle another department employee whom he'd been dating and throwing her to the ground, along with grabbing her son by the throat and slamming him to the ground.
Richard Goff, of Culloden, pleaded guilty Monday to driving under the influence. In exchange for the plea, Putnam prosecutors asked Magistrate Ronald Stone to dismiss the other charges.
"Victim has asked numerous times for domestic battery and battery charges to be dismissed," Putnam Assistant Prosecutor Elizabeth Sunyog wrote in a motion requesting dismissal of the battery and domestic battery charges. "Defendant has never made physical contact with victim before; Victim and Defendant are no longer in a relationship."
In June, Stone approved, over Sunyog's objections, removing the condition of Goff's bail that barred him from speaking with the alleged female victim. That alleged victim had asked to be allowed to contact Goff.
The bail condition prohibiting Goff from speaking with her son remained.
Three weeks after Goff's criminal charges became public in April, he resigned his nearly $90,100 annual salary position as executive director of the state Office of Child Nutrition. In that role, he oversaw the education department's nationally recognized child-feeding programs.
Goff declined to tell a reporter Tuesday whether he and the alleged female victim are dating again, whether he'll be seeking re-employment with the education department and whether he actually committed battery, despite such charges being dismissed.
"I don't have a comment," Goff said. "It's over. I'd like to move on."
According to the criminal complaint from the alleged April incident that led to the charges, Eric Tolbert, one of Goff's neighbors, told a Putnam sheriff's deputy that he called 911 after a child from across the street knocked on his door seeking help.
Tolbert said a woman was trying to leave Goff's home in her vehicle, but Goff opened the back door of her car and tried to "extract one of the kids from the back seat." Tolbert alleged Goff tried to choke the woman, but he was able to pull Goff out of the vehicle.
Putnam sheriff's Cpl. Daniel A. Redka wrote in the complaint that he saw Goff pull his vehicle into a driveway across the street, and that he smelled strongly of alcohol but declined to take sobriety tests.
When asked why Putnam prosecutors agreed to the deal to drop the battery charges in exchange for the DUI plea, Sunyog said, "We give great consideration to what the victim in this case wants to see happen, as well as other factors."
Sunyog noted Goff had no criminal history showing domestic violence against anyone else.
She said the alleged female victim - prosecutors didn't interview her child - seemed unwilling to help them try to prove the battery charges. While Sunyog said the alleged victim could've been legally forced to testify, "Our office takes a position that we don't want to re-victimize a victim."
Sunyog said prosecutors in her office may force an alleged victim to testify in situations where there have been severe injuries or repeated allegations of violence involving the same defendant.
"Again, we weighed all the other issues," Sunyog said when asked whether Tolbert's testimony was good enough to win conviction on the battery charges without the alleged female victim's help.
"Putnam County generally has always had a very strict policy with domestics, so when we sit down and weigh these cases out we do so with at least two prosecutors," she said. "This isn't a decision that's made on a whim."
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.