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Press Release

Logan Men Enter Guilty Pleas In Connection With Arson Scheme

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of West Virginia


Defendants conspired to set blaze to Logan office building to collect $1 million insurance payment 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Two men entered guilty pleas in federal court today in connection with a Logan arson scheme, announced U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin.  James Gregory Glick, and co-defendant Guy R. Miller, 39, both pleaded guilty to arson and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.  Glick, 44, of Logan, also pleaded guilty to conducting unlawful monetary transactions, and structuring currency transactions in connection with the scheme. 

In November 2011, Glick arranged to have an office building located at 111 Stratton Street in Logan burned to collect more than $1 million in insurance proceeds.  In late December 2011, the building was purchased by a known person for $45,000 prior to the scheme.  That person, in turn, immediately sold the property to Glick in early January 2012 purportedly for $50,000.

During the scheme, Mr. Glick then paid William Jamey Thompson, 44, an independent insurance agent from Chapmanville, approximately $50,000 to obtain a fraudulently-inflated $1 million insurance policy from General Star Indemnity Company (“General Star”) in connection with the scheme. 

On the night of February 1, 2012, Guy Miller, Shawn C. Simon, 41, of Charleston and another associate worked together to set the fire by spreading gasoline throughout the main floor. 

Additionally, Mr. Glick made illegal transactions of more than $10,000 from the Logan Bank & Trust (“LB&T”) on more than nine occasions.  Mr. Glick also structured more than $170,000 in monies from accounts at LB&T during the conspiracy.  “Structuring” involves the breaking down of cash transactions in amounts of $10,000 or less for the purpose of avoiding a financial institution’s reporting requirements to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Glick faces a minimum of seven years in prison when he is sentenced on February 19, 2014, by United States District Judge Thomas E. Johnston. 

Miller, who also pleaded guilty today to a federal drug charge, participated in an oxycodone distribution conspiracy in and around Logan County during the spring of 2011.  In the weeks following July 3, 2011, Miller made several trips to Florida to illegally obtain more than 1,000 oxycodone pills.     
Miller faces a minimum of seven years in prison when he is sentenced on February 19, 2014. 

The plea hearings for Thompson and Simon are set for Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013.

The West Virginia State Police and the IRS conducted the investigation.  Assistant United States Attorney Thomas Ryan is in charge of the prosecution. 

The case was prosecuted as part of an ongoing effort led by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of West Virginia to combat the illicit sale and misuse of prescription drugs.  The U.S. Attorney’s Office, joined by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, is committed to aggressively pursuing and shutting down illegal pill trafficking, eliminating open air drug markets, and curtailing the spread of opiate painkillers in communities across the Southern District. 

Updated January 7, 2015