A Washington Post investigation reveals that a West Virginia police chief who was found guilty of sex trafficking a minor in 2023 has yet to be sentenced, as the court has delayed the process twelve times so far.
Larry Clay Jr., the chief and only law enforcement officer in the small town of Gauley, West Virginia, was convicted of two counts of child sex trafficking and two counts of obstruction of justice for paying $100 to the stepmother of a teenager so that he could rape her. The victim, known to the court only as C.H. to protect her identity, had been trafficked to Clay by her stepmother, Kristen Naylor-Legg. The stepmother told the court during Clay’s trial that she had begun spending time with him after she went to the town hall to pay a ticket that he had issued to her husband. Naylor-Legg said that the police chief told her there were “sexual” ways that she could pay it off, and after she initially refused, he threatened her. “He would continue to harass my husband (C.H.’s stepfather) and make it to where I couldn’t see my kids anymore,” Naylor-Legg testified. “I gave him what he wanted.”
She then told the court that when Clay found out that she was in a desperate situation, with less than $20 in her bank account and at risk of having her electricity shut off, he proposed that she sell her stepdaughter to him for sex as well. Naylor-Legg also revealed to the court that her own mother had done the same to her when she was as young as 10 years old. She approached C.H. with Clay’s proposal, which C.H. initially refused. It was at this point that C.H. was also threatened into going through with something she didn’t want: “[Naylor-Legg] said she would make it to where nobody ever loved or cared for me again, and I wouldn’t have a roof over my head.” In meetings arranged by her stepmother, C.H. was raped by Clay on the hood of his police car and in his office, located at what was once the town’s high school.
Sex trafficking of minors falls under federal jurisdiction, which brings in well-resourced federal agencies to investigate and the potential for stiffer penalties. Larry Clay Jr. was found guilty in 2023 for his crimes against C.H., as well as obstruction of justice for his attempts to cover it up. The obstruction charges alone could carry a sentence of up to 25 years. Still, a year out from the verdict, Clay has yet to be sentenced, as the judge in his case has granted 12 delays so far based on requests from the defendant to throw out his case, blaming the prosecutors and his own layers at various turns. He remains in a local county jail rather than a federal prison, which he would be transferred to post-sentencing.
For her part, Naylor-Legg has been sentenced to 9 years in prison. “I forgive you for what you did,” C.H. told her stepmother in a statement to the court on the day she was sentenced.
