Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , July 16

Post-Gazette lawsuit questions WVU phone records

By Patricia Sabatini and Len Boselovic
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Attorneys for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette want to question West Virginia University administrators under oath about why the university has not produced departing President Mike Garrison's telephone records and why it withheld and removed portions of other documents the newspaper requested under the state's open records law.

Attorneys also will ask for the identities of individuals involved in preparing the university's response to the newspaper's Freedom of Information Act requests, including those who determined which documents should be withheld or edited.

The request to take the administrators' depositions is contained in a notice filed in Monongalia County Circuit Court yesterday and sent to WVU's lawyers.

The Post-Gazette had asked WVU for Mr. Garrison's cell phone and landline records through an FOIA request in January. Since that time, the university has only partially complied, the Post-Gazette alleges.

Initially, the university said it had no records of phone calls Mr. Garrison made during a crucial five-day period in October when WVU decided to award Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch, daughter of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, a fraudulent degree. Mr. Garrison is a former business associate, classmate and longtime family friend of Ms. Bresch.

After the newspaper sued WVU on April 15 for failure to comply with the state's open records law, the university provided "reconstructed" billing records for one of Mr. Garrison's two cell phone numbers. Records for the other cell phone number, which WVU said was Mr. Garrison's personal line, and for his landline have not been provided.

The records that were submitted were "reconstructed" by Cellular One because the university did not possess a detailed bill, assistant general counsel Shea Browning said. Mr. Garrison and members of his staff shared the cell phone account and usage was tracked and reported on the same bill. The university did not have problems providing detailed cell phone records for any staff member in the president's office besides Mr. Garrison.

"You will notice that the September and October records [for Mr. Garrison's cell] are visually different from the November records," Mr. Browning wrote to John Polak, a Charleston, W.Va., attorney representing the Post-Gazette. "From what we understand, the cellular phone provider or third party vendor had to reconstruct the records which resulted in a different record format than standard billing records."

The reconstructed version was on plain paper, not on Cellular One letterhead, without any indication of its origin.

Mr. Browning said WVU would not turn over billing records for the second cell phone number assigned to Mr. Garrison because it became Mr. Garrison's private line as of July 12, 2007.

On May 21, Mr. Browning said Mr. Garrison had agreed to search his personal records for proof that he paid for the cell phone service, which he expected to give to the newspaper "in the next several days." Those payment records have not been provided.

Cell phone and landline records for Chief of Staff Craig Walker were provided. According to those records, Mr. Walker and Ms. Bresch exchanged nine phone calls between Oct. 11 and Oct. 15, when top administrators decided to grant the governor's daughter a master's of business administration degree that she did not earn.

The Post-Gazette's lawsuit, filed April 15, also alleges that WVU withheld or blacked-out portions of e-mails that are not privileged or otherwise exempt from disclosure.

A date for the depositions has not yet been set.

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