Joseph Spano is stepping down as an assistant Kanawha County prosecutor, he said this week.
Spano, who has worked as an assistant five years, gave his two-weeks notice to Prosecuting Attorney Charles Miller on Tuesday.
He will join attorney Alan Pritt to open Pritt and Spano LLC on Lee Street East. He will handle both civil and criminal cases and do some family law work, he said Wednesday.
Spano, 31, is the prosecuting attorney assigned to Kanawha Circuit Judge Charles King's courtroom. He was hired after graduating law school at West Virginia University by former prosecuting attorney Mark Plants.
"I've been told by a bunch of attorneys that when you hit the five-year mark you either branch off or become a career prosecutor and I wanted to give it a shot at being my own boss," Spano said.
Miller had finally had a full staff after hiring two new assistants in June. Spano will mark the eighth assistant to leave the office since Miller was appointed to the position late last year when Plants was removed from office.