MORGANTOWN — Speaking before the Monongalia County Commission, Daleen Berry said she will go to jail before she complies with the order of Monongalia County Circuit Court Chief Judge Susan Tucker regarding a lawsuit tied to the estate of her late husband, Kinsey “Butch” Culp Jr.
She has until noon Oct. 9 to do so or face contempt of court charges.
Berry said she believes the ruling was based on fraud and that she can show through forensic accounting that her husband’s name was forged on approximately $600,000 in checks written on a business account for expenses unrelated to the storage business, Richard Self Storage.
Central to the issue is Culp’s business partner, Wesley N. Wolfe, whom Berry accused of misappropriation of funds along with his attorneys in this matter, Paul Cranston and Robert Louis Shuman.
Mediation in the case resulted in the Culp estate owing Wolfe $1,300. Berry said accounting records show Wolfe actually owes the estate about $1.3 million. According to Berry, she went into the scheduled mediation-turned-arbitration despite the fact that her attorney told her and the court the day prior to the hearing that he had a conflict and could no longer represent her or the estate.
“Judge Tucker refused to let him withdraw, and then set a hearing for the following week to take testimony on the conflict,” Berry said. “However, instead of postponing the April 4 mediation that she personally ordered, Judge Tucker knowingly sent me into it without proper representation — because that attorney clearly told her on April 3 that he could no longer ethically represent me or the estate.”
Berry said she will not sign off on Tucker’s order as it would make her a party to fraud and violate her fiduciary duty to protect her late husband’s estate for beneficiaries — herself and three grandchildren — and creditors, including WVU Hospitals, Clear Mountain Bank and Morgan Funeral Home. Further, signing the documents means vacating the home that she and her late husband paid off prior to his April 17, 2017 death.
“Because Judge Tucker has, throughout these proceedings, shown a pattern of abuse of the judicial process, I am filing a motion today for her to be disqualified. I am doing this because judges take an oath to uphold the law. They are not above the law,” Berry told the commission. “This judge chose to go against what the state and federal laws say is illegal and unethical. You cannot uphold an arbitration award that is based on fraud.”
She said she’s also contacted the county prosecutor’s office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the West Virginia Public Corruption Hotline. Berry asked the commission for any assistance it could provide in this matter. The commissioners said they don’t have standing to get involved. This assessment was backed by George Armistead, an attorney who serves as a fiduciary commissioner for the county.
Berry is an author whose works include “Pretty Little Killers: The Truth Behind the Savage Murder of Skylar Neese.”
