WV Auditor raises eyebrows after signing tax deeds for a friend

Two state lawmakers are raising questions after the state auditor appears to have stepped to fix a deed issue for a friend.  

The West Virginia state auditor is the state’s bookkeeper and responsible for rooting out fraud, waste and graft within both state and local governments. And in recent years, the auditor has been placed in charge of handling the sale of properties with delinquent taxes. 

But several property transactions in Kanawha and Boone counties show Auditor Mark Hunt may have stepped outside the bounds of the law to sell properties to a Charleston-based attorney who has amassed a land empire throughout the state. 

And records show that same attorney also worked for the Auditor’s Office.

West Virginia Watch, responding to news tips, searched land databases and visited a county clerk’s office to look for deeds with Hunt’s signature. It found that Hunt, a former state senator elected to the office in 2024, personally signed nine tax deeds between March and June 2025.  

State law governing the sale of delinquent tax properties, meaning properties lost because the owner didn’t pay their taxes, states that the deputy land commissioner – not the auditor – is supposed to sign those deeds. 

Hunt said when he came into the office in 2025, the land division that handles the deeds was in disarray, with files upon files of deeds in boxes. When Hunt’s office received a phone call from Robert L. Johns, a bankruptcy attorney, asking about deeds that had not yet been signed, the auditor said he became concerned that the office would be sued if the problem wasn’t fixed. 

A spokesperson for the prior Auditor, now Attorney General JB McCuskey, declined to comment about the state of the office.

“This is our fault,” Hunt said. “So seeing inequity, I made a decision that I believe the 500,000 people who voted for me gave me that to make a judgment call. I made a judgment call to issue the deeds. 

“There’s no nefarious things here,” Hunt added “Frankly, it’s something I forgot even happened until this tempest in a teapot has come up in the last couple weeks.” 

But state code already addresses what should happen when the Auditor’s Office fails to provide the deed in a timely fashion. The person who bought it must take the deputy land commissioner to court. 

Records show two of the nine deeds were signed beyond a deadline mandated by state law, which Hunt said was due to the disorganized state of the office. 

Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, is an attorney who deals with property rights and has lent a hand in rewriting how the state responds to owners who don’t pay their taxes. 

“It clearly states that deeds for people who purchase properties at these tax sales are issued and signed by the deputy commissioner,” Weld said. 

When a West Virginia landowner fails to pay property taxes, the county can seize the property for back taxes. Prior to changes in 2022, this was handled by the local sheriff. Now, the state auditor’s office handles the sale. An outside party can bid to buy the deed, at which point they have to notify the current owner. If the current owner doesn’t pay up on their taxes or respond, the outside party can then buy the deed to the property outright. 

Hunt’s cursive signature on the documents and the issuance of deeds to someone employed in the auditor’s office is extremely troubling to Weld. 

“On its face, it looks as if it’s intentional. And so you have to ask the question: Why?” Weld said.

Hunt defended his signature on the deeds. 

“The deputy commissioner works under and through me and through my authority,” Hunt said. “It would be foolish to think that the commissioner’s boss couldn’t sign the same deed, or any other matter in the office … I can sign whatever I need to sign to make the office work.” 

Hunt also pointed to a different piece of state code to support the practice he said he only did for Johns.  

Seventeen thousand deeds come through the auditor’s office a year, he said. 

Hunt, a lawyer by trade, added that “common law” protects his right to sign the deeds regardless of what the state code says. None of the allegations are criminal, he said.

“If someone would have a problem with me signing that deed instead of the deputy commissioner, someone has the right to go to circuit court and have it set aside,” Hunt said. 

Weld said this isn’t a paperwork issue – peoples’ homes are at stake. 

“You always have to be extremely cautious when you’re crafting legislation or statutes that affect people’s property rights and their ownership in it, and so that’s why we (lawmakers) went the painstaking lengths when we revised all of this several years ago to ensure that we were taking into account those rights,” Weld said. “You don’t want to see someone lose their property or lose their house simply because they didn’t pay their taxes.”

Del. Tristan Leavitt, R-Kanawha, is the president of Empower Oversight, a nonprofit law firm that specializes in whistleblower cases and investigating government corruption. He said the deeds and Hunt’s explanation are concerning. 

“The law isn’t a buffet a public official can pick and choose from at will. The code here explicitly limits when the Auditor’s office can issue a deed,” he said. “If they make a mistake and should have issued a deed earlier, the remedy for that is to apply to a judge for execution of the deed, as state code requires.” 

Hunt signed deeds for employee in auditor’s office

The nine deeds signed by Hunt went to MAPA LLC, a landholding company incorporated under Patricia Johns, the wife of Robert Johns. 

Both Johnses are listed as incorporators of a number of limited liability companies that hold hundreds of parcels of land throughout the state, with a total appraised value of $38 million. 

“I’ve known Bob for many years. He’s been a friend for years,” Hunt said, calling him an expert in the land process. Johns typically buys “scrub land,” like hillsides or creek beds that residents lost due to back taxes, Hunt explained.

“Over the years, he has bought a lot of land, and he pays a lot of taxes to the state of West Virginia because this is what the selling of this delinquent land’s about,” he said. 

Johns did not respond to multiple email interview requests for this story.

During the 2024 election, Patricia Johns donated $1,000 to Hunt’s campaign, as she did in his 2022 run for state Senate. 

The West Virginia State Checkbook, an online repository of how state finances are spent, shows Robert Johns worked at the auditor’s office in 2025, the latest calendar year available, and was paid a little more than $14,000. 

Hunt said he brought Johns into the auditor’s office to deal with McDowell County’s potential insolvency in 2024. Johns, a U.S. bankruptcy trustee, worked as the receiver for McDowell County to sort through the impoverished county’s financial issues. 

“We kept him on the payroll because there’s other towns that have become insolvent and have lost their charters, and that’s just a function that we provide,” Hunt said. “We got Bob as kind of a deal.”

Johns also works for the auditor’s office as a consultant on land issues, Hunt said.

Records show MAPA was buying delinquent property through July 2026.

Leavitt called the transfers, and the relationship between Johns and Hunt “cronyism.” 

“Mark Hunt’s claims that he had to correct a mistake made before he arrived don’t match up with evidence that he continued illegally approving deeds months into his tenure,” Leavitt said. 

Hunt said he wasn’t cutting a friend a break. He said there are six people, including Johns, buying 90% of the delinquent land throughout the state. The fact that he intervened to correct issues with Johns’ property isn’t unusual. 

“I don’t care if it’s Bob Johns, Bob Smith, Tom Johns, Tom Smith,” Hunt said. “If they had the same issue, I would have done the same thing.”

This isn’t the first time Hunt’s office has come under scrutiny. 

Earlier this year, journalist Kyle Vass reported Hunt hired state Sen. Jay Taylor, R-Taylor, on a contract basis to work at the Auditor’s Office, after being told by  Attorney General JB McCuskey that full time state government work by a sitting lawmaker was barred by the state constitution. 

Taylor said he was unaware there was an issue and was told by Hunt that everything was fine. 

In late October, Brad McElhinny of Metro News reported that the Auditor’s Office was served a federal grand jury subpoena. 

“Those federal subpoenas contained a clause that we’re not supposed to talk about the contents of,” Hunt said. “I don’t know what they’re doing, but I will tell you that no one’s even talked to me.”