MEZZATESTA ACCUSED OF FABRICATING LETTER - Kanawha School Board Seeks His Resignation

(08/04/2004)

House Speaker Bob Kiss has agreed to investigate a letter that his education chairman, Jerry Mezzatesta, sent to the state school superintendent. Allegations have been made that Mezzatesta fabricated and then back-dated the letter to fend off an ethics complaint. Kiss's action follows Monday night's 3-to-2 vote by the Kanawha County school board to petition Kiss for Mezzatesta's removal as chairman. West Virginia Wants to Know co-founder Wanda Carney says it should be simple for investigators to determine that Mezzatesta wrote the fabricated letter in question after the state Ethics Commission began investigating him. Carney says Mezzatesta produced the evidence to make him look good in an investigation by the Ethics Commission. which has already cleared him of two complaints . One investigation alleged he sought a $70,000 state grant for his employer, the Hampshire County Board of Education. The other focused on the county pay he received while serving in the Legislature. The Ethics Commission has been asked to reopen those investigations.

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