Perri Jo DeChristopher is Chief Judge of the 17th Judicial Circuit Court (Monongalia County). Governor Jim Justice appointed Judge DeChristopher to the bench to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Judge Philip D. Gaujot. She took office on January 27, 2023.

She was born and raised in Monongalia County and attended Morgantown High School. She is a graduate of West Virginia University and West Virginia University College of Law.

Judge DeChristopher’s career in public service began when she accepted a position in the Harrison County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in 1994. In 1998, she began working in the Monongalia County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office as an assistant prosecuting attorney, and she became chief assistant in 2000. She was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Monongalia County in 2016 and re-elected in 2020.

For more than 20 years, Judge DeChristopher was responsible for prosecution of murder charges, violent felony offenses, felony drug cases, and sexual assault crimes involving children and adults. She was a member of the Monongalia County Sexual Assault Response Team, chair of the Mon Metro Drug Task Force Board of Directors, a founding member of the Monongalia County Adult Drug Court, vice president of the West Virginia Association of Counties, and is a past president of the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Association.

She was appointed by the governor to the Sexual Assault Forensic Examination (SAFE) Commission and was the vice chair of the West Virginia Sentencing Commission under the Governor’s Committee on Crime, Delinquency, and Correction.

Outside of her legal career, Judge DeChristopher was an officer on the board of Mon General Hospital and is an executive board member of Your Community Foundation of North Central West Virginia (YCF).

She was inducted as a West Virginia Bar Fellow in 2023.

She and her husband, retired West Virginia State Trooper Chuck Porter, have two children.