Dr. Joseph A. de Soto (left) sued Cheryl Kump (right), wife of Delegate Larry Kump (R-Berkeley). In 2024, de Soto was elected to the House as a Republican but switched to Democrat before being arrested for making terrorist threats. He never served in the House.
MARTINSBURG – An Eastern Panhandle doctor who was elected to the House of Delegates but never served has sued the wife of a lawmaker accusing her of defamation, extortion, sexual misconduct, political retaliation and more.
Dr. Joseph A. de Soto filed his complaint last year in Berkeley Circuit Court against Cheryl Kump. De Soto was elected to a House seat in 2024 as a Republican from the 91st District in Berkeley County, but he switched his party affiliation to Democrat the same week he was arrested in December 2024 and charged with making threats of terrorist acts to several delegates. That case was bound over to circuit court last year, but no hearing has taken place there yet.
In the civil complaint, de Soto blames Kump, the wife of Delegate Larry Kump (R-Berkeley), for a chain of events that led to his arrest and ouster from office as well as other damages. He seeks more than $1 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
Larry Kump reached out to de Soto in February 2024 to ask him to interpret medical test results for Cheryl Kump, according to the complaint. In the complaint, de Soto says he is an internationally published physician and scientist with medical and doctoral degrees from Howard University and fellowship training at the National Institutes of Health.
The plaintiff says he provided the assistance to the Kumps free of charge, including phone calls, emails and multiple in-person meetings at medical facilities over several months.
In June 2024, de Soto decided to run for a seat in the House of Delegates. He says Cheryl Kump began offering unsolicited advice on how to run his campaign. He says she also claimed to be a priestess and clairvoyant.
In August 2024, he says Cheryl Kump called to meet de Soto for something that “could not be spoken over the phone,” the complaint states. They met at Panera Bread, and he says Cheryl Kump told de Soto his campaign manager Christine Miller was “evil and would betray him.”
According to the complaint, Cheryl Kump also said Miller had been her husband’s campaign manager before, but they had a falling out. She also sent de Soto an email later saying the same thing, the complaint states.
When de Soto changed the topic, he claims Cheryl Kump shared a nickname he allegedly calls her husband and discussed aspects of her and her husband’s sexual relationship.
“As a priestess, anything you say to me is confidential now or in the future,” de Soto claims Cheryl Kump told him. “I am just here to help.”
He says Cheryl Kump then tried to touch him, but he says he pulled away and said he needed to leave.
“To this day, on email and in person, the defendant’s husband Larry Kump still addresses himself as the husband of Cheryl and rarely uses his name,” the complaint states. “
The plaintiff says he met with Miller and her husband. He says Miller told him she left the Kump campaign “due to their association with white supremist organizations, their believe that they both talked to an angel called Moroni and God himself, and a belief that blacks were descendants of fallen demons.”
In the complaint, de Soto says he did his own background check and “found this to be true.”
About a week after the Panera Bread meeting with Cheryl Kump, de Soto says he was being slandered online by some local delegates and members of the Republican Party. He says he was called “a dirty Jew, fake doctor, illegal alien, war criminal and so forth.”
After that, de Soto says he didn’t meet Cheryl Kump alone in person again and didn’t talk to either of the Kumps on the phone “without having it on speaker and having the conversations listened to by others.” But he says he still tried to help with Cheryl Kump’s medical issues and tried to maintain a friendly relationship with Larry Kump.
When de Soto won the election in November 2024, he says the online attacks against him increased. He says that also included an alleged murder attempt and a call from a delegate who said House leadership “did not want a untrustworthy Jew who got elected by working trash, women and negroes in the party.”
That is when de Soto says he decided to leave the Republican Party and join the Democratic Party. In the complaint, de Soto also says he believes Cheryl Kump “had a hand in this hatred.” He says he began to pull away from the Kumps.
In December 2024, de Soto says he received an email asking if he could help Cheryl Kump with a few medical questions. He says he called her December 10 on speakerphone so others could hear. When he mentioned the health issues, he says Cheryl Kump instead demanded to know why he hadn’t fired Miller.
“Kump then went on a diatribe stating that Christine Miller would betray me, was evil and just an ignorant hillbilly like the others that elected you,” the complaint states. “Kump then said that the angel Moroni would help her get rid of Christine Miller if you don’t.”
In the complaint, de Soto also claims Cheryl Kump had told him that “the local delegates include three white supremacists, a guy who has been convicted eight times for crimes and a pedophile. All according to you Cheryl. Your own words.”
He also says someone created an AI-generated video of de Soto’s voice to use to accuse him of stolen valor.
“They have put me through hell with their slander since June, and they don’t represent the people of Berkeley County and will say anything to get elected,” de Soto says in his complaint.
He then offers advice on how to remove his critics from office … and makes a threat of his own.
“The only way we can get them out of office is to reinvigorate the local Democratic party to the way it used to be,” de Soto writes. “I will send them to their personal hell like they have done to me and the residents of this county for several years.
“Don’t you remember how all of them voted to give the state surplus to Bill Gates and screwed over the elderly? Do you think the people would like to know how some of the delegates call them working trash?”
He claims Cheryl Kump also told de Soto his party switch would hurt Larry Kump’s chances of getting on the House Rules Committee. He also says she threatened to send de Soto and Miller to jail because law enforcement and court officials “will believe a white woman over a Mexican Jew.”
In the complaint de Soto also says Cheryl Kump told him she’d visit Miller the next day “and deal with her.” In his complaint, de Soto says Miller was found dead the next day. Miller’s obituary says she died December 11, 2024, at Berkeley Medical Center in Martinsburg.
On December 11, 2024, de Soto says he decided to send an email to Cheryl Kump mocking her belief in the angel Moroni by saying “he had a dream in an attempt to make her rethink how awful she sounded.” He says he also sent an email to Cheryl Kump reminding her he had followed through with his plan to send some of the delegates “to or through hell by getting them out of office.”
That evening, he says four armed State Troopers came to his house “and dragged the plaintiff off the couch” where he was being treated on oxygen for a recent heart attack and severe pulmonary disease. He was arrested for making terroristic threats.
“Cheryl Kump had fabricated a complete story of the phone call stating that the plaintiff had threatened to kill local delegates and the Speaker of the House,” the complaint states, adding she allegedly altered or hid exculpatory emails from State Police.
The plaintiff accuses Cheryl Kump of defamation, libel, slander, extortion, blackmail and intentional infliction of emotional distress with malice. He seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney fees, home monitoring fees, future earnings and other relief totaling $1.1 million.
Cheryl Kump has yet to file an answer or response to the court filing, and messages to Larry Kump seeking comment have not been returned.
The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Catherine A. Delligatti.
Berkeley Circuit Court case number 25-C-559
