Republican State Lawmaker Accused of Seducing 15-Year-Old Girl

A Republican state delegate and teacher from West Virginia has been charged with seducing a 15-year-old girl who is a student at his school.

Investigators have accused David Elliott Pritt of using Snapchat and the multiplayer game Roblox to start talking to the girl outside of school during the 2024–2025 school year, when she was in eighth grade. At the end of that year, he allegedly told the child that he “loved her,” and sent her a picture of himself in pajama pants and asked for pictures of her in return. When the girl replied with normal pictures, Pritt requested more explicit ones, and she obliged. Pritt eventually enticed the girl to repeatedly have sex with him in the classroom, and they continued to exchange explicit photographs up until just this month.

Pritt was reported to police by the girl’s family on July 9, and calls for his resignation were raised immediately from both sides of the aisle.

“The West Virginia House of Delegates simply will not tolerate conduct that even approaches what is alleged in the public filings released by federal law enforcement today,” West Virginia House Speaker Roger Hanshaw said. “I urge Elliott Pritt, for the benefit of his family and the people of his District, to spare his students and his colleagues at every level the continued embarrassments and distractions and to resign from elected office as soon as he is able.”

The West Virginia GOP also said Pritt should resign, calling the allegations “shocking, sickening, and deeply disturbing.” What makes this horrific matter even worse is that in his legislative career, Pritt has earned political capital from his supposed opposition to the sexual abuse of minors. He offered perhaps the most spirited, emotional defense of Raylee’s Law, a bill that would force the state to stop removing students who are the subjects of child abuse investigations from school, stating then that “we have an opportunity here tonight to do something to protect children.” And when Pritt won his delegate seat in 2022, he beat an incumbent, Austin Haynes, who was accused of sexual harassment—saying that Haynes’s loss was a “moral decision” that West Virginia voters made.

“No one is perfect, but there are some mistakes and lapses in character and judgment that just cannot be overlooked or ‘go away,’” Pritt said about Haynes at the time. ...