Charges filed in December standoff at law firm

DPNews@DominionPost.com
Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department filed charges against the man involved in a December standoff at a local law firm.
Jeremy Harp, 32, has been charged with brandishing, a misdemeanor, according to a criminal complaint filed in Monongalia County Magistrate Court. Harp meanwhile entered a plea of not guilty to the charge.
The Dec. 16 standoff lasted nearly six hours and ended with Harp surrendering to deputies and being taken to Ruby Memorial Hospital.
Law enforcement arrived on scene after receiving a call stating there was a man with a gun at Cranston & Edwards on Dorsey Avenue in Morgantown.
The law firm evacuated all staff from the building. Upon arrival, police closed the road for safety while crisis negotiators worked to coax Harp to turn himself in. According to police, he admitted to officers on scene that he did, in fact, have a gun, and surrendered.
According to a statement made by Cranston & Edwards following the incident, Harp claimed to have been the one who received and possessed child pornography in a case in which his brother, Christopher Harp, was found guilty in federal court.
U.S. Attorney William Ihlenfeld dismissed the confession, saying in a statement at the time, that the evidence “established beyond a reasonable doubt that Christopher Harp regularly downloaded, possessed, and viewed child pornography.”