Letter to the Editor: Endorsing Jeff Sandy
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This letter is being offered to notify you that I am giving my total endorsement and support to Jeffrey Sandy in his bid to run for the West Virginia House of Delegates.
I first met Jeff when he was a young Treasury Special Agent and I was a young West Virginia State Trooper. It was the 1970s in West Virginia and we were both working on bringing down the most powerful organized crime factions in the Northern part of the State. I was surprised at Jeff's tenacity toward the investigation, his commitment to the State and to the fearlessness he showed in aggressively pursuing some of the most dangerous criminals on the east coast.
This was at a time when I was working deep cover and I was very skeptical of whom I worked with and any release of information I was gathering because a slip of the tongue could result in my cover being discovered and my life being placed in extreme danger. As it turned out, the investigation, which was primarily worked by the State Police and the Criminal Investigative Division of the Department of the Treasury, ended successfully and was termed West Virginia's news story of the decade by the state's leading newspapers.
My trust and admiration for Jeff grew over the next 45 years as his commitment to this state and to his job have never been placed into question. As our careers took different paths, I watched as Jeff continued to receive promotions and also receive some of the highest commendations within Treasury and the federal government, ultimately becoming a Senior Supervisory Agent. I was not surprised when Jeff was called to duty as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which resulted in him and his team locating and confiscating billions of dollars stolen by the Iraqi regime and was returned to the people of Iraq by the U.S. government.
When Jeff was appointed to run West Virginia's Department of Homeland Security, it was truly an honor to be asked by him to be his deputy secretary. Again I had the extreme pleasure to watch as Jeff used his intelligence and state commitment to successfully oversee West Virginia's second largest department, especially during the COVID years, and make monument changes that are the backbone of the department today.
My jobs have taken me to lead the West Virginia State Police, to be a Special Assistant
U.S. Attorney, an Acting Prosecutor for Putnam County and a corporate manager for Toyota Manufacturing of West Virginia. As such, I have been asked to give recommendations or endorsements to quite a few people, which I have not done. However, it is with great pride and enthusiasm that I am able to endorse Jeff for his bid to become the next House of Delegates member so that he can continue to serve the people of his district and the people of West Virginia.
Thomas Kirk
Winfield, W.Va.