Page 7 - IAV Digital Magazine #490

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Kentucky Judge Accused Of Courthouse Threesome Is Suspended
By Ben Kesslen
A Kentucky family court judge has been suspended with pay after she was accused of misconduct, including an alle- gation that she had a threesome in the courthouse.
Dawn Gentry, a family court judge in Kenton County, in Kentucky's northern 16th Judicial District, was charged with multiple counts of misconduct in November by the state Judicial Conduct Committee.
She was put on paid suspension this week pending a final decision.
Gentry is accused of coercing court staff to work on her judicial elec- tion campaign, retaliating against employees who failed to support her campaign and
hiring a man with whom she had a sexual relation- ship, according to a conduct com- mittee document outlining the charges. She denies all of the accusations.
The judge, who was elected in November 2018, is alleged to have hired her lover, a former pastor, and allowed him to play guitar and sing in the office,
"disrupting other court employees during the work- day," according to the documents. An attorney for Gentry said she didn't realize that the man's behav- ior was a distrac- tion, the docu- ments show.
Gentry, her male lover and a third court employee, a woman, also are alleged to have engaged in sexu- al activity in the
courthouse. Gentry denies that allegation, as well, according to court documents.
She faces a slew of other allega- tions, among them that she took her children to work and allowed them to witness confiden- tial court proceed- ings. Once, her child recognized one of the chil- dren involved in a confidential case,
the conduct com- mittee alleged.
The committee also accused Gentry of approv- ing false or inac- curate time sheets and of allowing staff to store and con- sume alcoholic beverages in court offices and to consume alco- hol in the court- house. Gentry denies falsifying time sheets, and she said through
a lawyer in a court response that she had been unaware that her staffers were drinking.
Stephen Ryan, Gentry's attorney, said in an inter- view Wednesday that witnesses during court pro- ceedings attested to Gentry's skills as a judge, argu- ing that she was fit to remain on the bench.
"They said she was fair and lis- tened to the argu- ments and wrote good legal opin- ions," said Ryan, who said Gentry often presided over divorces, child neglect and abuse cases, and truancy issues.
Ryan said that he expects the sus- pension to last one to two months and that a hearing should be set shortly.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine