Kanawha County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Plants enters magistrate court on Monday with his attorney Jim Cagle. Plants was charged with battery on his son.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — State Police charged Kanawha Prosecuting Attorney Mark Plants with domestic battery Monday and say he struck his son with a leather belt more than 10 times.
Plants turned himself in after a warrant was issued for his arrest on the misdemeanor charge Monday morning.
This is the second time Plants has been charged this month. He was previously arrested and charged with violating a domestic violence protective order, also a misdemeanor.
In the complaint filed Monday, police say Plants went to his 11-year-old son’s room after the boy shoved his step-brother off of a scooter.
The boy told police that Plants “held him by his arm” and struck him more than 10 times with a leather belt.
Plants then took the boy upstairs and “stood him in front of his step-brother.”
“Do you think I whipped him enough?” the complaint says Plants asked the boy’s step-brother.
Police photographed a “dark purple to brown in color” bruise shaped like a “U” on the boy’s thigh four days after the incident, the complaint states. The bruise was about six to seven inches in length, according to police.
At first, Plants told police he struck his son twice. He later admitted, the complaint states, to striking him “maybe three or four times.”
Plants told police the incident lasted “no more than 20 seconds,” the complaint states.
Plants’ ex-wife, Allison Plants, reported the incident that occurred Feb. 22 to police on Feb. 26. She found out about it after overhearing her younger son ask about his brother’s injury, the complaint states.
Allison Plants was granted an emergency domestic-violence protection order by Kanawha Family Court Judge Mike Kelly in February…
