MARTINSBURG, W.Va. – It’s been a busy month in Berkeley County’s court system, with the February 2026 session of the Berkeley County returning a total of 68 indictments and a lengthy sentence handed out for a man accused of multiple sex-related crimes.
Among those indicted by the grand jury, Joseph de Soto, who was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates out of Southern Berkeley County but was never sworn in following his arrest in December of 2024.
He faces charges including Unlicensed Practice of Medicine, False Representation, Terroristic Threats, and Campaign Finance Violations.
Berkeley County Prosecuting Attorney Joe Kinser was a guest on Wednesday’s Panhandle Live and laid out the charges:
“Mr. DeSoto had been charged by the state police with the terrorist threats and that was what had been bound over to the grand jury. But upon receiving the evidence, the grand jury did indict him on several other charges, including three different variants of the unlawful practice of medicine,” Kinser said. “The other two are misrepresentation of authorization to practice medicine and false indication or inducement of authorization to practice medicine.” Kinser said those charges stem largely from claims made by deSoto during his campaign for the House of Delegates.
Another case related to a shooting that happened in a vehicle in Berkeley County.
Elias Michael Jenkins, 20, of Martinsburg faces murder, use of a firearm during a Commission of a felony as well as two counts of wanton endangerment charges.
“The allegations there are that the shooter was in the front passenger seat, the victim was in the back seat of the car, but there were five folks in the car all together, which is where some of those wanton endangerment charges come from — for discharging a firearm inside of a car,” Kinser said.
A handful of the drug indictments included the designation Drug Kingpin, which Kisner explains.
“That is one of our newer statutes. I’m not sure if it’s been charged anywhere in the state yet prior to to this grand jury,” Kinser explained. “A drug kingpin under our our new statute, means an organizer, supervisor, financier or manager who acts as a co-conspirator in a conspiracy to manufacture, distribute, dispense, transport in or bring into the state of West Virginia a controlled or dangerous substance. When you have that and you have certain amounts of drugs, that qualifies for various penalties under the law.”
Among those indicted related to soliciting a minor were two former employees of the Berkeley County school system, including a former teacher. Luke Young, Seno and a former cross country high school coach, Hunter Austin Reed.
“Mr. Seno, who was a employed as a teacher at Musselman Middle School, that’s a case that was investigated by the West Virginia State Police, and resulted in quite a heavy indictment,” Kinser said, adding, “This indictment involves one named victim and multiple occurrences.”
As for the charges against Reed, who was employed at Musselman High School, “that indictment, albeit much smaller than Mr. Seno’s is three counts and does involve two different students, two different victims,” Kinser said.
33 year old Brandon Warren of Martinsburg was sentenced this week after being convicted on 53 criminal counts of incest, sexual assault and child pornography. Kinzer laid out the sentencing details.
“That was one of the biggest cases I’ve ever had,” Kinser, who worked as an assistant prosecutor in Berkeley County before becoming prosecutor, said. “I’ve been involved in the case for five years.”
“It was kind of like an onion. Every time we would dig deeper, we’d realize there’s another layer, there’s more crime that we found,” said Kinser.
“He’s been in jail since October 5 of 2022. And then once he was locked up, multiple children came forward. So we had to add those counts. And then come to find out when he was arrested, he was in an active relationship with a 15 year old girl at that time and she ultimately came forward.”
The total sentence for Warren is 260.5 years to 908 years.