Photo by Eric Ayres Wheeling resident Anand Patel appears Thursday in Ohio County Magistrate Court for a hearing in the case involving campaign mailers sent out last May prior to the 2024 municipal election in Wheeling.

WHEELING — A special prosecutor handling the case against Wheeling resident Anand Patel — pertaining to anonymous mailers sent out prior to the city’s 2024 municipal election — said Thursday that a proposed resolution to the case will likely be presented to the court in the future.

Patel and Wetzel County Prosecutor Tim Haught, who was named as special prosecutor in the case, both appeared in Ohio County Magistrate Court on Thursday for a hearing in the case before Magistrate Kevin Stryker.

Following an investigation by the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office into the mailers, Patel was accused of being the source of the material and was charged with a total of 22 misdemeanor counts related to the mailers. A total of more than 12,500 of these mailers were distributed in the Wheeling area via U.S. mail in the first weeks of May of last year.

The mysterious pre-election material — sent from Florida in waves with nine different designs focusing on various candidates and topics — hit residents’ mailboxes in the days leading up to the 2024 municipal election in Wheeling. Most of the mailers were considered to be negative campaign attack ads focusing on candidates in last year’s Wheeling mayoral and city council races.

Patel was originally charged with two counts of making a false statement regarding a candidate, nine counts of publishing or circulating anonymous items supporting or aiding defeat of a clearly identified candidate in an election, nine counts of failure to report independent expenditures of more than $500 and two counts of failure to include a public notice for communication by independent expenditure.

In June, Haught filed a motion to dismiss all nine counts related to publishing or circulating an anonymous item supporting or aiding defeat of an election candidate. During Thursday’s hearing, the magistrate asked Patel if he had any objection to the prosecution’s motion to dismiss those nine charges.

“Absolutely not,” Patel said, and the motion was granted.

During Thursday’s hearing, Patel — who has been representing himself — filed motions to dismiss most of the remaining charges in the case. He also waived his right to a speedy trial.

“I don’t want to get into speedy trial issues,” Haught said. “Certainly, if he wants a trial, I’m willing to give him a trial on the case. The case is a little complicated because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that can be very applicable to some of the statutes in West Virginia.”

Previously, Haught explained that his motion to dismiss nine charges was based on a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of McIntyre v. the Ohio Elections Commission, establishing that the First Amendment protects the decision of an author to remain anonymous.

“I’ve had the opportunity to discuss with Mr. Patel the procedure going forward,” Haught told the court. “I’ve tendered to him, just for purposes of this hearing, some preliminary discovery. He indicates to me that he’s willing to waive his right to a speedy trial.”

Haught said he understood that Patel intended to file motions to dismiss charges based on constitutional arguments, but indicated that he had gone over the motions. The special prosecutor requested another pre-trial hearing, which was set for Oct. 2.

“We’ve also discussed a potential resolution to the case, and I believe — from my conversations with him — that we will have a resolution to this case at some time to present to this court for your approval,” Haught said.

In the meantime, the special prosecutor is expected to review Patel’s motions and file a response to them before the next hearing.

The magistrate, who also ran for office during the same municipal election last year, asked the parties if either of them felt there was any reason he should be disqualified from presiding over the case.

“I also was a candidate in that non-partisan May 14, 2024 election — for a judicial office,” Stryker said. “I was a candidate at the same time. I just wanted to identify that.”

Noting that the mailers had nothing to do with candidates in judicial races, both Haught and Patel agreed that there was no reason to believe that Stryker had a conflict in the case. They stated for the record that there was no need for the magistrate to recuse himself from the proceedings simply because he ran for office during the same election.

In one of his motions filed Thursday, Patel sought to dismiss remaining charges related to reporting requirements. Since the prosecution had moved to dismiss nine criminal charges against him related to the distribution of anonymous political mailings, Patel argued that the nine counts alleging violation of campaign finance reporting requirements would be derivative of those charges that on Thursday were dismissed.

Patel also filed a motion Thursday to dismiss two charges alleging the publication of false statements about a candidate intended to affect voting. These charges were related to two of nine political mailers — one of which referred to responses to 911 calls to the home of Wheeling City Councilman Ben Seidler.

“While only one of the two incidents was officially labeled as involving domestic violence, both were police responses to the same residence in close succession,” Patel noted in in his motion, which stated that a mailer had listed incident numbers taken directly from public records obtained through Freedom of Information Act requested submitted to Ohio County 911.

“Whether the first incident should have been classified as domestic violence is a matter open to litigation and interpretation,” Patel said. “The mailer raises concerns about inconsistent law enforcement practices involving public officials, specifically why a sitting councilman may have received discretionary leniency. This line of political inquiry is not a falsehood — it is investigative critique and civic scrutiny, which is fundamental to democratic discourse.”

The second mailer in question criticized then Councilwoman Rosemary Ketchum’s past affiliation with an “openly leftist political movement” and her leadership role supporting candidates aligned with those ideological views.

“The statements reflect public affiliations and political consequences — not invented facts,” Patel argued. “Even if disagreeable to some, the speech is rooted in truth and political judgment, not deception.”

Patel argued that charges related to political opinion and protected speech raise constitutional concerns and have a “chilling effect.” The state code on which the charges are based regarding statements against candidates requires proof that the statement was false, the defendant knew it was false and it was made with the intent to affect the election outcome, Patel noted.

“Criminalizing this form of political speech would not only overreach the statute but would have a deeply chilling effect on open democratic participation,” he said. “Applying (the statute) to issue- and conduct-based commentary — without demonstrable falsity — is both vague and overbroad, exposing all political critics to potential prosecution based solely on tone or opinion.”

Patel urged the court to consider these motions to dismiss charges at its earliest convenience, preferring an Oct. 2 hearing date over the previously suggested date of Oct. 16.

“If we could get these heard sooner than later, that would be fine,” Patel said.

Two years before the 2024 Wheeling municipal election, Patel — the manager of the former Wheeling Inn on Main Street — had become enveloped in a battle with the city, which had taken action to declare the hotel a public nuisance in 2022 — citing a number of police calls to the area. Before a public nuisance hearing could take place, Patel’s family sold the property to the Wheeling Convention and Visitors Bureau. The Wheeling Inn was demolished, and a new visitor’s center is expected to be constructed on the site where the hotel once stood next to the historic Wheeling Suspension Bridge.