Larry Clay Jr., a former West Virginia police chief, was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in federal prison for sex-trafficking a 17-year-old girl, then trying to derail the investigation into his crimes, the Washington Post reports. Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence for Clay, who was found guilty by a jury last year. Clay, 58, did not react as his sentence was handed down by Judge Joseph Goodwin. The young woman who was twice raped by her town’s police chief in 2020 watched as he was escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs.
She had been waiting for Clay to be sentenced since April 2023, when she described to a jury how the chief of the Gauley Bridge Police Department persuaded her stepmother, who was struggling to pay the bills, to sell her for $100. Her stepmother, Kristen Naylor-Legg, also testified against Clay and was sentenced to nine years in prison. Clay’s sentencing was scheduled around the same time. But the former chief successfully delayed his hearing 12 times. Clay’s tactics were the subject of a Post investigation published in November. The story reported how the former chief had leveraged his position to sexually assault the teen while on duty, interfere with the investigation and intimidate a witness. After the story appeared, Clay attempted to delay his sentencing a 13th time by asking for a new trial and seeking another new attorney.
But this time, Goodwin called Clay’s requests “a ploy to bring about delay,” saying, “This case has been continued, and continued, and continued.” Before announcing the sentence, Goodwin told the former chief, “The police are entrusted to serve and protect.” The judge added, “To protect liberty, we must hold public servants accountable. Justice demands that those entrusted with power embody the values they are sworn to uphold.” Federal prosecutors had asked the judge to give Clay a life sentence plus 10 years, saying he had “struck at the very core of the justice system” when he instructed the victim’s stepmother to lie to investigators and tried to persuade a Fayette County Sheriff’s Department detective, a longtime friend, to make his case “go away.” Instead, the sheriff’s department, where Clay held a second job, handed the investigation to the West Virginia State Police. The case was then turned over to the Department of Homeland Security, which has expertise in trafficking cases.