The Fantastic Life of Dr. Joseph De Soto: False Claims Made by the Presumptive Delegate from West Virginia’s 91st District

From claims about providing health care in West Virginia to saying he’s “negotiated with ISIS” on behalf of US intelligence, De Soto appears to have campaigned on a largely fabricated picture of his life. 

Now, he’s running unopposed for the House of Delegates with the backing of the West Virginia Freedom Caucus.

Written by Kyle Vass and Austin Siford, Jun. 26, 2024

To hear Dr. Joseph De Soto talk about his professional life, you’d wonder when Hollywood is going to ask for the rights. The presumptive delegate for the 91st District in Berkeley County has described himself as an Army Ranger medic, national security negotiator, a doctor who’s provided free health care to hundreds in West Virginia and the Navajo Nation, former dean of a university, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Cancer Researcher of the Year.

But a Dragline investigation into De Soto’s life shows these claims range from misleading to outright false. Many of his self-depictions on which he campaigned to secure the Republican nomination for the seat appear to be created from whole cloth. Because no Democrat filed in the race, DeSoto is now running for the seat unopposed. 

What is known about De Soto, while less flattering, is no less outlandish. 

De Soto’s employment history is made up of several short stints at various jobs, contributions to medical journals that have been described as predatory publications, scathing reports about his workplace conduct, and documentation of his having patronized sex work — a habit hypocritical of a married lawmaker advocates for the sanctity of the family and has equated adultery to murder.

Here are five fact-checked claims De Soto has made about his life and his work:

Claim #1 - De Soto said he’s provided hundreds of people in Berkeley County and in the Navajo Nation with free health care.

FACT: De Soto is not licensed to practice medicine anywhere in the United States.

Despite claiming to have provided health care for people on his website and during appearances on WNRN’s “Eastern Panhandle Talk,” De Soto has no license to practice medicine.  He has also advertised himself as a doctor under the name “De Soto Medical LLC” since March of 2024, but only registered this business in May. 

While De Soto does hold a Doctor of Medicine degree from Howard University, he never completed the process of obtaining licensure – a requirement for doctors to practice medicine. Per his website, De Soto claims to have helped  “300 persons in south Berkeley with free health care who couldn’t afford to go their (sic) own doctor these past 25 years.” 

When contacted for comment about a politician pretending to be a licensed doctor, the receptionist at the West Virginia Board of Medicine answered “Oh, De Soto?” adding, “You’re not the only one asking about him.” Executive Director Mark Spangler later confirmed via email that De Soto is not and has never been licensed by the Board.

When reached for comment, De Soto said that his claims about providing health care refer to consultations with patients and their doctors. “What I do is I consult on the medications on the pharmacogeneticists. I'm a physician scientist.” De Soto rejected the idea that he is misrepresenting himself as a licensed physician.

According to West Virginia State Code, people who practice medicine in West Virginia without a license (including unlicensed doctors) could face up to a year in a correctional facility and be forced to pay a $10,000 penalty. 

Claim #2 - De Soto wrote on his LinkedIn profile that he served as a combat medic and U.S. Army Ranger from 1986 to 1993. He’s also referenced “being in combat,” working for the CIA, and having “negotiated with ISIS and Al-Qaeda.”

FACT: A records request with the National Archives showed De Soto served in the Army from Sept. 3, 1987 to July 8, 1988. His military service was a little over ten months — a timeframe inconsistent with the time it would take to attain his claimed positions and served overseas.

When asked about these discrepancies, De Soto agreed that the information provided on his LinkedIn was incorrect – clarifying that he was never a Ranger but rather an Army combat medic.  

De Soto confirmed via interview that he served in the Army for ten months. At the time he joined the Army, basic training took two months to complete. The Advanced Individual Training course for an Army combat medic is 16 weeks. 

While it is possible De Soto served as a combat medic for those remaining four months of his military service, he refused to answer whether or not he was deployed during that time. When asked if he was ever deployed, De Soto repeated multiple times, “I was a combat medic.”

Claim #3 - De Soto said he left his federal job with a U.S. “intelligence agency” to run for the House of Delegates. He told the Martinsburg Journal that he worked for the CIA.

FACT: The federal job that De Soto left was with the United States Patent and Trade Office – the federal agency for granting U.S. patents and registering trademarks. An email from a USPTO spokesperson confirmed that De Soto was employed there from May to October 2023. 

Prior to working at USPTO, De Soto was employed at Diné University from August 2018 to April 2022. His position at Diné was his sixth university job in eight years according to his LinkedIn profile.

When asked about working for intelligence agencies, De Soto said that he “did contract work with the CIA.” When asked about that work, he responded “I can’t talk about that.”  Later in the conversation, De Soto said he has the paperwork to prove it, but insisted on meeting in person to provide it and refused to provide an electronic copy.

Claim #4 - De Soto said using his experience as a college dean, he will reform education in the state, promising to tackle the “woke agenda.” As an example of misguided school priorities, De Soto said he walked into Musselman High Public Library and that “there wasn’t a single book” on math, social science, or science available.

FACT: A representative with Vorhees University, the school where De Soto claims to have been a dean, said De Soto was never a dean there. As for Musselman High public library, a catalog search of their titles came back with 81 books with the word “math” in the title and 1,380 books with “science” in the title.

The representative from Vorhees told Dragline, "He was never a dean. We didn't even have deans at the time." The representative did confirm De Soto served as a chair for the Department of Science, Technology, Health and Human Services for the year he worked there.

When asked about his time at Vorhees, De Soto said he was a dean for three months before that position was downgraded for budget cuts. When told what the representative from Vorhees said, De Soto – without providing any proof – criticized the university’s current president: “If you want a story on him, he was the one having sex with students. But you’re not going to investigate him. But I damn well was the Dean of Voorhees. I have the documentation showing I was the Dean of Voorhees.”  (De Soto provided no documentation showing he ever served as dean.)

What we do know about De Soto’s professional life comes from a 2010 lawsuit he filed against the Department of Defense, claiming he faced a hostile and discriminatory workplace while employed at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences Graduate School of Nursing.

In the lawsuit, the Dean of that program however said her decision to not renew his contract was not based in discrimination but rather his substandard research performance, and his “inexplicably aggressive and at times openly hostile treatment” of coworkers – including several “baseless criminal accusations” against them.

Her report also included that De Soto “had lost or misplaced several laptop computers.” She noted one incident where De Soto, on a government-funded trip for the university, had a rental car (along with two laptops) “stolen one evening when [De Soto] was receiving a lap dance.” 

A police report from the incident included the following description taken by a police officer as described by De Soto to a sheriff’s deputy in Orlando, Florida.

“THE FEMALE ASKED DESOTO IF HE WANTED ANY SPECIAL FAVORS FROM HER. DESOTO THOUGHT TO HIMSELF THAT THE SPECIAL FAVORS WAS IN REFERENCE TO HAVING SEX. DESOTO TOLD HER NO. DESOTO STATED, ‘I CONSIDER IT BUT, I DID NOT KNOW HER, SHE MIGHT HAVE AIDS AND I AM 'NOT-WANTING TO CROSS THAT LINE’.”

De Soto, who has compared adultery to murder and campaigned on family values, has been with his wife since at least 2002 when they purchased a home in West Virginia together. When asked about this police report, De Soto said he had never seen any documents from the court filings as he refused to pay his attorney. 

The lawsuit, according to court records, was voluntarily dismissed by De Soto after two years of litigation. When asked about the case’s disposition, De Soto told Dragline, “I told the attorney long before that that he was charging too much and I told him to forget it.”

De Soto’s name also appears on an X (formerly Twitter) account that has a single post. Made five days after De Soto filed suit against his former employer, the post states:   “@ Uniformed Services University was harassed for NOT being gay & for being Jewish. Was called a filthy jew had a swastika [sic] painted on my car.” 

Court records show that while at USU, De Soto claimed his car was vandalized but the Department of Defense found no credible leads on the case.

De Soto told Dragline he’s never had a Twitter account.

The same user name appeared in 2019 commenting on a sex workers forum where the user “TheDocjd” provided commentary on services provided by a sex worker in the Martinsburg area. “If you like a spinner who rides cock she [sic] for you, anything else. Probably not.”

De Soto also denied ever posting on forums about sex work.

Claim #5 - De Soto said he is endorsed by the West Virginia Freedom Caucus – a group of far-right lawmakers in the West Virginia Legislature whose top legislative priority is denying transgender kids the freedom to access gender-affirming care. 

FACT: The West Virginia Freedom Caucus appears on De Soto’s 2024 campaign finance primary report for a donation of $1,000.   

Despite not being registered with the state or federal government as a PAC or business, the address listed with the donation on the finance report is the home of Delegate Geoff Foster (R – Putnam), the caucus’s chair. 

Foster’s caucus donated to two other candidates for the House during the 2024 primary elections: Daphne Andrews of Jefferson County (who lost her primary bid)  and Carl Bill Roop of Raleigh (who ran unopposed for the nomination).

De Soto’s most recent finance report shows a donation from the Eastern Panhandle Republican Association with a mailing address with the Navajo Nation in Shiprock, New Mexico. Like the West Virginia Freedom Caucus, the EPRA isn’t a registered entity with any government.

A representative from the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office told Dragline “unregistered entities are not recognized as lawful in West Virginia” with respect to making political donations as an organization.