Months after a warrant was issued in opposition to him, former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin has been arrested.
The arrest was made Sept. 3 by the Bourbon County Sheriff’s Workplace, simply north of Lexington, in accordance with a dispatcher with Paris-Bourbon County 911.
A request for remark despatched to the previous governor’s legal professional was not instantly returned. The dispatcher didn’t have extra particulars when reached simply after 7 p.m., apart from to say Matt Bevin had been arrested on a warrant.
Requests for remark despatched to the Bourbon County Sheriff’s Workplace and the native circuit court docket clerk weren’t instantly returned. A replica of his arrest quotation was additionally not instantly out there.
Jefferson Household Courtroom Choose Angela Johnson filed the arrest order in opposition to Bevin – a one-term governor who took workplace in late 2015 – on Might 29, per week after he’d failed to look in court docket in particular person for a listening to involving his adopted son’s push for retroactive little one help.
The warrant was issued after he missed a deadline to offer the court docket with monetary paperwork opposing attorneys stated had been wanted to arrange for a trial. He was given an choice to bypass jail by paying a $250 high-quality and offering the filings inside per week. He despatched over a number of paperwork minutes earlier than the June 5 deadline however requested extra time to provide the others. The choose denied his request hours later.
“Matt, because the perpetrator of civil contempt, holds the keys to his personal jail cell,” the choose wrote in her ruling. “By persistently refusing to adjust to Orders that he produce paperwork after having a number of probabilities to conform, he has locked the door behind himself.”
That arrest warrant, on a contempt of court docket cost, referred to as for him to serve 60 days behind bars and pay a $500 high-quality.
Former Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin listens to a grievance in opposition to he and First Woman Glenna Bevin in Household Courtroom on Friday, March 21, 2025. Their son, Jonah Bevin, 18, has been granted an emergency protecting order in opposition to his mother and father.
Matt Bevin has missed a number of court docket dates within the case and didn’t attend the Might 29 listening to in particular person as required by the choose, showing by way of Zoom as an alternative. He was in Maine, he stated, after a property he owned had been broken – “I’ve a really massive boulder behind our home and I am making an attempt to take care of that,” he stated.
Johnson had additionally issued an arrest warrant in opposition to him in March, ruling him in contempt of court docket at the moment over failing to show over the monetary paperwork, together with state and federal tax returns together with financial institution statements and different filings. That warrant was later recalled after a Courtroom of Appeals choose decided the previous governor had filed to have Johnson faraway from the case earlier than her warrant was issued.
In Might, the Kentucky Supreme Courtroom denied Bevin’s request to disqualify Johnson.
Matt Bevin has for months claimed Johnson is unable to afford him a good trial and is utilizing the case to achieve consideration from the media. He re-upped these claims in a June 5 assertion, arguing the choose “appears singularly centered on discovering some technique to put me in jail” and her work on the case “makes a mockery of Kentucky and our court docket system, and comes at an ideal value to these households whose actual instances maintain getting pushed apart for a case during which no authorized foundation even exists.”
The controversy is centered round a push by Jonah Bevin, one in every of 4 Ethiopian kids adopted by Matt Bevin and ex-wife Glenna Bevin in 2012, to acquire retroactive little one help.
From July: Minus the ex-governor, Matt Bevin little one help case lastly goes to trial
Jonah Bevin has stated he was abused over a lot of years at a number of boarding faculties for “troubled teenagers,” together with Atlantis Management Academy in Jamaica, which was raided by regulation enforcement over allegations of mistreatment whereas he was in its custody. Jonah Bevin’s adoptive mother and father didn’t attend a custody listening to after it was shut down, briefly leaving him as a ward of the state within the Caribbean nation. His attorneys have additionally argued the highschool diploma he later acquired will not be legitimate and was not issued by an accredited faculty.
The case went to trial in late July, with the previous governor not in attendance. A ruling within the case has not but been issued.
“Nobody is above the regulation, and that is been demonstrated as we speak,” two attorneys for Jonah Bevin, John Helmers and Melina Hettiaratchi, stated after the Sept. 3 arrest.
This story will likely be up to date.
Courier Journal editor Bailey Loosemore contributed. Attain Lucas Aulbach at laulbach@courier-journal.com.
This text initially appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Ex-Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin arrested on warrant