Fort Gay mayor, town recorder arrested

FORT GAY, W.Va. (WSAZ) - The mayor and town recorder in the town of Fort Gay were arrested Friday on numerous charges, including alleged embezzlement of nearly $200,000 from town funds.

Joetta Hatfield, the mayor of Fort Gay, and Sheila Bowen, the town recorder, were taken into custody and arraigned in Wayne County Magistrate Court Friday afternoon.

Hatfield and Bowen are both charged with multiple felonies including fraudulent schemes, embezzlement, falsifying accounts, money laundering and conspiracy.

According to criminal complaints filed in Wayne County Magistrate Court, the charges stem from their work for the town of Fort Gay in incidents dating back to March 2019.

For people in the community, like Sarah and Annie Fraley, the news of Hatfield and Bowen’s arrests wasn’t something they expected.

“I figure she’s going to have a hard time with the way people are, and I think that’s a shame because every person on this Earth has made a mistake a time or two. Some people just make bigger ones. But it don’t make her a bad person. I think,” Sarah said.

Annie said she’s known Bowen for a while.

“I used to go to that library a lot. It surprised me about her cause ... I don’t know, she was real nice all the time. So I didn’t really expect anything out of her either,” Annie said.

The complaint alleges that Bowen used various town of Fort Gay account numbers to pay her own American Electric Power bills -- as many as 15 times and totaling more than $8,500. The investigation also shows that Bowen paid her own AT&T bills with more than $16,000 in town funds.

“Registers given to the Town Councilmembers were either altered or have payments omitted to conceal or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of the proceeds of the fraudulent activities of both Hatfield and Bowen,” the complaint states.

The complaint also said both women managed to embezzle nearly $95,000 each -- with more than 100 checks written to each of them.

“These checks would then be signed by Hatfield and Bowen to fulfill the two-signature requirement of the checks,” the complaint states.

Wayne County Schools said Mayor Hatfield is a service employee in the district.

The district could not comment on her status as an employee, as they say it is a personnel matter.

Bond was set at $25,000 for both women.

Hatfield and Bowen both posted bond.

Both women will appear back in court for a preliminary hearing.