Down The Middle News: Kentucky Judge Faces Misconduct Charges Over Accusations Of Sex And Alcohol At Court . News

Kenton County Justice Heart in Covington, Ky., in 2017.

Getty Photos, Raymond Boyd

A household court docket choose in Kentucky is dealing with quite a few accusations {of professional} and sexual misconduct, as state authorities say Kenton County Decide Daybreak Gentry coerced colleagues to help her election marketing campaign, made inappropriate advances towards an legal professional, and had intercourse in a courthouse workplace.

The Kentucky Judicial Conduct Fee prepares to carry a disciplinary listening to concerning the formal prices towards Gentry. There aren’t any fast plans for impeachment proceedings towards her in Kentucky’s upcoming legislative session, in response to state Rep. Adam Koenig – however he provides, “It’s an possibility that we want contemplate, in my view.”

“This must be taken very severely,” says Koenig, whose district consists of a part of Kenton County. Calling the allegations towards Gentry “extraordinarily troubling,” Koenig says they “mirror an abuse of energy, amongst different points.”

Gentry has denied almost the entire misconduct prices towards her and continues to work as a choose on the Kenton County Household Courtroom, which relies in Covington, Ky., simply throughout the Ohio River from Cincinnati. The case drew extensive curiosity after the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Fee launched paperwork associated to the formal proceedings towards the choose.

These paperwork element a raft of accusations towards Gentry. She is alleged to have:

Coerced attorneys to make most donations to her 2018 election marketing campaign.
Used court docket employees to work on her marketing campaign throughout work hours — and retaliated towards those that didn’t help her marketing campaign.
Drank alcohol within the courthouse that she permitted employees to retailer and eat in court docket places of work.
Appointed an legal professional to her court docket’s employees in trade for political help from the legal professional’s husband — the county legal professional common.

And the panel says, “On one event, while you introduced your kids to work with you, your little one witnessed a confidential continuing and acknowledged the kid concerned within the continuing, violating the confidentiality of proceedings in a household court docket case.”

There are additionally various salacious allegations, because the judicial fee says Gentry fired a girl on her employees so she may rent a former pastor, Stephen Penrose, “since you had been engaged in a private sexual relationship with him, not on the idea of advantage.”

Along with their different relationships, Gentry and Penrose had been in a rock band collectively known as South of Cincy.

The Kentucky panel says Gentry additionally “made unwelcomed sexual advances” towards legal professional Katherine Schulz — who labored as an advocate for youngsters on the court docket — and that the choose retaliated when these advances weren’t reciprocated.

Along with participating in inappropriate conduct on the courthouse and on Snapchat, the judicial fee says Gentry additionally had intercourse with Penrose and her secretary, Laura Aubrey, whereas they had been at work.

“You additionally engaged in sexual exercise with Mr. Penrose and Ms. Aubrey in a courthouse workplace, throughout work hours,” the fee says in its submitting. The panel additionally says Gentry, Penrose and Aubrey left the courthouse collectively “on quite a few events,” leaving her household court docket workplace unstaffed.

Gentry, a Republican who not too long ago concluded a divorce, gained election to the household court docket bench in 2018. In doing so, she retained the seat to which she’d been appointed by former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin in 2016, when the spot was vacant.

Particulars concerning the misconduct prices towards Gentry had been first reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer. In her formal reply to the costs, she denies having a sexual relationship with Penrose or Aubrey, and the choose says she didn’t make any inappropriate advances towards Schulz.

In her reply to the judicial panel, Gentry did acknowledge that an inappropriate joke was despatched on Snapchat, and he or she additionally acknowledged that the kids of employees had been current throughout a continuing.

“This choose has jurisdiction over all household court docket points in Kenton County, a county of over 160,000,” Koenig instructed NPR. “We can’t permit somebody participating on this conduct, if true, to stay on the bench.”

The Kentucky panel says Gentry authorised inaccurate time sheets and allowed Penrose “to spend work hours enjoying his guitar and singing in his workplace,” disrupting different workers.

If Gentry is impeached, she would develop into solely a handful of public officers who’ve confronted that censure in Kentucky’s historical past. Citing legislative data, the Enquirer says the final time a choose was impeached within the state was in 1916; that choose was not convicted of the costs he confronted.