BUCKHANNON – A Buckhannon man was arrested after allegedly threatening to shoot a West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources worker who is employed in the agency’s Upshur County office.
Richard Mealey, 48, was arrested Monday, May 20, and charged with threats of a terroristic act, a felony.
According to the criminal complaint in the Upshur County Magistrate Clerk’s Office filed by investigating officer Senior Trooper P.J. Robinette, at 4:15 p.m. Monday, Robinette received a call through the Upshur County E911 Communication Center regarding a terroristic threat complaint.
Robinette contacted the Upshur County office of the W.Va. DHHR and spoke with a supervisor there, who stated that Mealey had allegedly called the Child Protective Services Centralized Abuse Hotline and made threats against the Buckhannon office.
According to the complaint, the supervisor said Mealey had allegedly made threats regarding a specific DHHR worker based out of the Buckhannon office, who he mentioned by name. In addition to the supervisor, Robinette spoke to the centralized intake hotline worker who’d taken Mealey’s call when he allegedly made the threat.
The supervisor and the centralized intake hotline worker said Mealey stated he was going to “take a bullet and shoot [the DHHR worker]” because she had “ignored” his calls. Mealey further stated that he “had nine months to live and had nothing to lose,” the complaint says.
Mealey allegedly told the centralized intake worker, “You’re going to read about this in the paper,” and informed the worker that he lived close enough to the Buckhannon DHHR office that he could “walk over and shoot [the individual],” the report says.
Mealey is being held in the Tygart Valley Regional Jail on a $50,000 cash/surety bond.
If convicted, Mealey faces a fine of not less than $5,000 nor more than $25,000; confinement in a state correctional facility for not less than one year nor more than three years; or both.
