Source: WV Gazette

A Hurricane man arrested last year for his conduct at his sons' midget football practice was removed from a high school basketball game last month for directing a racial slur toward Winfield's chief of police, a Putnam County prosecutor said Tuesday.

Troy Sexton, 36, was removed by a Winfield police officer from the Winfield-South Charleston boys basketball game on Dec. 22 for making several "loud, vulgar and offensive remarks" about Police Chief Harrison Lucas, Putnam County assistant prosecutor Jennifer Scragg said Tuesday.

Sexton also allegedly offered the Winfield officer a T-shirt from his car that he had made with Lucas' picture and the words "dumbest cop of the year."

Sexton pleaded no contest to two counts of domestic battery on Dec. 4 in Putnam County Magistrate Court, and was sentenced to six months in jail and given a suspended one-year sentence and two months of probation. He was arrested in August after holding one of his sons upside-down by the ankle and pushing another to the ground at the boys' midget football practice at Winfield Elementary School.

Sexton appeared in Putnam Circuit Court on Tuesday to appeal the six-month jail sentence levied by Magistrate Kim M. Blair. Scragg's remarks came in response to Sexton's request for probation.

Sexton's lawyer, Thomas H. Peyton, argued Tuesday the jail sentence doesn't compare to other domestic battery sentences in the county.

Since 2005, there have been 265 criminal cases in magistrate court where the defendant has been sentenced for domestic battery or assault charges, according to Sexton's petition for probation. Of those, 19 were sentenced to jail.

Many of the defendants who received alternative sentencing, including probation or fines, were accused of stabbing, slapping and pulling a knife and/or gun on the victims, the petition states.

"While [Sexton's] conduct was highly inappropriate and admittedly criminal, the children did not suffer any serious injuries or long term effects," the petition states. West Virginia Child Protective Services also found no signs of abuse or neglect in the Sexton home.

Christie Sexton, Troy Sexton's wife, asked the court Tuesday to allow her husband to return home and receive probation instead of jail time. She said her husband has underlying mental-health issues and has been taking medication for about five years.

Sexton has been diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder and has been seeing a counselor, Peyton said.

Sexton told the court Tuesday he had not consistently taken his medication while on vacation prior to his outburst at his sons' football practice in August.

"I'm extremely sorry for what happened that day," he said Tuesday. "I handled it in the most inappropriate of ways, humiliating my children and making a whole bunch of children uncomfortable and a bunch of other parents uncomfortable."

Putnam Circuit Judge O.C. Spaulding did not make a decision Tuesday, and instead referred the matter to the county probation office to review Sexton's mental health, and the recent allegations at the Winfield basketball game.

Prior to the basketball game, Winfield's chief of police had had no contact with Sexton. The outburst was apparently related to the town's investigation and charges against Sexton, according to prosecutors.

"[Sexton] chose again to exhibit bad behavior at a local sports event where children were in attendance," prosecutors said in their petition. Several students overheard the remarks and mistook them for a racist attack on some of South Charleston High School's basketball players, according to the petition.

The Winfield officer who removed Sexton from the basketball game last month was the same one who arrested him at his sons' football practice in August, according to prosecutors.

Sexton has a cult following on YouTube where he has posted more than 70 videos under the name "Troy from West Virginia." Most of them focus on sports, more than 20 on Sexton's admiration for Joe Beimel, a major-league pitcher with the Colorado Rockies.

Sexton also wrote a 1,289-word "Arrest Manifesto" appeared about a week after his arrest on the blog bustedcoverage.com, which bills itself as "Booze, Ladies and Football." The manifesto is from a YouTube chat Sexton had with a blogger from the Web site.