A judge has ordered the arrest of a former Kentucky governor, Matt Bevin, after finding him in contempt of court. The ruling came at a hearing this week in Louisville, Ky., days before a trial to determine whether Mr. Bevin owes child support to an estranged son, Jonah Bevin.
The judge, Angela J. Johnson of Jefferson County Family Court, found that the former governor had repeatedly disregarded orders to turn over financial documents, and sentenced Mr. Bevin to serve 60 days in the county jail or to turn over the records that the court had sought.
Mr. Bevin, who was out of town, appeared at the hearing on Tuesday via a videoconference. His lawyer, Jesse Mudd, did not respond to a request on Wednesday for comment.
After the judge said she would order Mr. Bevin’s arrest, he filed a motion to disqualify her, arguing that she was making Mr. Bevin “jump through proverbial hoops” not placed before other litigants, “due solely to him being a former Governor of Kentucky.”
The order was first reported by The Kentucky Lantern, a news outlet.
Mr. Bevin entered the governor’s office in 2015 as a pugnacious businessman with no background in elected office, his combination of wealth and brashness often drawing comparisons with Donald Trump. As a conservative Republican, Mr. Bevin welcomed these characterizations, though his bullying style most likely contributed to his electoral defeat in 2019. That year, he lost a bid for re-election to Andy Beshear, a Democrat who is now in his second term as governor. Mr. Beshear’s father preceded Mr. Bevin as governor.
Unlike Mr. Trump, Mr. Bevin made his faith and family a core part of his political message, promising to overhaul the state’s foster care system to focus on “what’s best for the child.” On the campaign trail, he often appeared with his nine children, including four he and his wife had adopted from Ethiopia.
One of those children was Jonah Bevin, whom the Bevins adopted when he was around 5. He had trouble adjusting to his new home, struggling in school and getting in trouble out of it, according to court records. When he was around 13, the Bevins sent him to the first of what would be a series of youth residential facilities outside Kentucky, several of which have since been investigated for allegations of abuse.
He returned home for short stays, and in fall 2023 was arrested after he allegedly assaulted immediate family members, court papers said. Weeks later, Jonah was sent to a school in Jamaica where the conditions were so dire that the authorities later charged multiple employees with abuse and neglect. Jonah was among several boys who were taken from the facility by Jamaican child welfare authorities, and he remained in their custody for weeks when no one came to pick him up.
Alleging that he had been mistreated and that his adopted parents had tried to send him back to Ethiopia “to get me to disappear,” Jonah Bevin later sought and was granted protective orders that prohibited the Bevins from contacting him.
Now 19, he has been living with a family in Utah, said one of his lawyers, Melina Hettiaratchi. But, he said in an affidavit, he has found it “extremely difficult to find and maintain employment due to my circumstances and limited workforce preparation.”
In 2023, Mr. Bevin’s then-wife, Glenna Bevin, filed for divorce, and the two reached a settlement last year. But before the court approved the settlement, Jonah filed to intervene, arguing that he was due child support.
At the time of the divorce, Jonah was still a minor and thus entitled to support in the months after the filing, Ms. Hettiaratchi said.
The judge scheduled a trial on the question of Jonah’s child support for this Friday. But his lawyers said that they needed details about the Bevins’ finances before going to trial, and that the Bevins were not providing the records.
“We can’t prepare for trial and we can’t engage in any kind of settlement negotiations without those documents,” Ms. Hettiaratchi said.
The Bevins argued that their finances should remain private “given the historical ulterior motives and ill intent of the media and other outside sources as it relates to our family.”
Earlier this month, though, after the judge set a deadline, Ms. Bevin turned over records to Jonah Bevin’s lawyers that included much of the documentation they were seeking from her.
Days later, Mr. Bevin provided records, but they were heavily redacted and included no supporting documentation. He said in a filing that he had “made extensive efforts” to comply with the judge’s order but that providing documentation of his income on short notice was difficult, as it is “primarily derived from documents that are either not available yet or not easily accessible.”
According to The Kentucky Lantern, Mr. Bevin told the judge that he held $9 million in property, $3.6 million in various securities and $1.8 million in retirement funds. Ms. Hettiaratchi said he has provided little information about these properties or any sales concerning them.
In his motion to hold Mr. Bevin in contempt, Jonah Bevin said he believed that his father was delaying to force him either to drop the case because he could no longer afford his lawyers —who have been working unpaid for the past year — or “to settle for basically nothing because I cannot continue to live on the goodwill of others.”
Campbell Robertson reports for The Times on Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
The post Judge Orders Arrest of Former Kentucky Governor for Contempt appeared first on New York Times.
