{"id":660020,"date":"2026-03-01T14:14:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T19:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wvmetronews.com\/?p=660020"},"modified":"2026-02-28T12:45:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T17:45:53","slug":"berkeley-county-prosecutor-discusses-recent-indictments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wvmetronews.com\/2026\/03\/01\/berkeley-county-prosecutor-discusses-recent-indictments\/","title":{"rendered":"Berkeley County prosecutor discusses recent indictments"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

MARTINSBURG, W.Va.\u00a0 \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s been a busy month in Berkeley County\u2019s court system, with the February 2026 session of the Berkeley County returning a total of\u00a068 indictments<\/a>\u00a0and a lengthy sentence handed out for a man accused of multiple sex-related crimes.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He faces charges including Unlicensed Practice of Medicine, False Representation, Terroristic Threats, and Campaign Finance Violations.<\/p>\n

Berkeley County Prosecuting Attorney Joe Kinser was a guest on Wednesday\u2019s\u00a0Panhandle Live<\/a>\u00a0and laid out the charges:<\/p>\n

\"\"
Joseph Desoto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMr. DeSoto had been charged by the state police with the terrorist threats and\u00a0that 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\u00a0different variants of the unlawful practice of medicine,\u201d Kinser said. \u201cThe other two are misrepresentation of authorization to practice medicine\u00a0 and false\u00a0indication\u00a0or inducement of authorization to practice medicine.\u201d\u00a0 Kinser said those charges stem largely from claims made by deSoto during his campaign for the House of Delegates.<\/p>\n

Another case related\u00a0to a shooting that happened in a vehicle in Berkeley County.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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 \u2014 for discharging a firearm inside of a car,\u201d Kinser said.<\/p>\n

A handful of the drug indictments included the\u00a0designation\u00a0Drug Kingpin, which Kisner explains.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Berkeley County Prosecutor Joseph Kinser<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThat is one of our newer statutes. I\u2019m not sure if it\u2019s been charged anywhere in the state yet prior to to this grand jury,\u201d Kinser explained.\u00a0 \u201cA 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those indicted related to\u00a0soliciting\u00a0a 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Seno, who was\u00a0a\u00a0employed as a teacher at Musselman Middle School,\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0a case that was investigated by the West Virginia State Police, and resulted in quite a heavy\u00a0indictment,\u201d Kinser said, adding, \u201cThis\u00a0indictment\u00a0involves one named victim and multiple occurrences.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the charges against Reed, who was employed at Musselman High School, \u201cthat\u00a0indictment, albeit much\u00a0smaller than Mr. Seno\u2019s is three counts and does involve two different students, two different victims,\u201d Kinser said.<\/p>\n

33 year old\u00a0Brandon Warren of Martinsburg was sentenced this week after being convicted<\/a> on 53 criminal counts of incest, sexual\u00a0assault\u00a0and child pornography. Kinzer laid out the sentencing details.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was one of the biggest cases\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0ever had,\u201d Kinser, who worked as an assistant prosecutor in Berkeley County before becoming prosecutor, said. \u201cI\u2019ve\u00a0been involved in the case for five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was\u00a0kind of like\u00a0an onion. Every time we would dig deeper,\u00a0we\u2019d\u00a0realize\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0another layer,\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0more crime that we found,\u201d said Kinser.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s\u00a0been in jail since October\u00a05 of\u00a02022. And then once he was locked up, multiple children came forward.\u00a0So\u00a0we had to add those counts. And then come to find out when he was arrested, he was in an active relationship with a\u00a015 year old\u00a0girl at that\u00a0time\u00a0and she\u00a0ultimately came\u00a0forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

The total sentence for Warren is 260.5 years to 908 years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Additional charges against Joseph DeSoto. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":660021,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-660020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBerkeley County prosecutor discusses recent indictments - WV MetroNews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wvmetronews.com\/2026\/03\/01\/berkeley-county-prosecutor-discusses-recent-indictments\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Berkeley County prosecutor discusses recent indictments - WV MetroNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Additional charges against Joseph DeSoto.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/wvmetronews.com\/2026\/03\/01\/berkeley-county-prosecutor-discusses-recent-indictments\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"WV MetroNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-03-01T19:14:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-28T17:45:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.us-east-005.backblazeb2.com\/wvmn-s3\/2026\/02\/Designer-29.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1536\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Marsha Chwalik\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Marsha Chwalik\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wvmetronews.com\/2026\/03\/01\/berkeley-county-prosecutor-discusses-recent-indictments\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wvmetronews.com\/2026\/03\/01\/berkeley-county-prosecutor-discusses-recent-indictments\/\",\"name\":\"Berkeley County prosecutor discusses recent indictments - 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