Recently we blogged about the chronic overbilling problem West Virginia has for state appointed work.
The attorney in that blog had been suspended for 2 years. At that time state officials were stating that there were other attorneys that were far worse.
West Virginia Attorney William Lester has been charged with fraud in overbilling for court appointed work. According to the state officials, Lester managed to bill the state for more than 24 hours a day on at least 17 days. Lester had billed the state for over $600,000 in court appointed work in the past 2 years. West Virginia pays $45 per hour for out of court work and $65 an hour for in court work. Assuming an average billing rate of $60 an hours this works out to billing for over 10,000 hours in the past 2 years.
Kanawha County prosecutors believe that Lester is now in South America. When assistant prosecutor Fred Giggenbach recently got a Twitter account, one of the 1st people to follow prosecutor Giggenbach on Twitter was Lester. According to the Charleston Gazette-Mail Lester wrote to Giggenbach, “My Man Fred! Welcome to Twitter. Send my Best to All!”
Giggenbach stated that ‘Maybe we can tweet him a plea deal’.