GOP ex-governor sentenced to jail for defying judge in court battle with his son

In an explosive development in an ongoing legal battle, former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin has been sentenced to 60 days in jail for contempt of court, unless he pays a $500 cash bond and complies with the court orders he has ignored.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, the judge accused Bevin of repeatedly refusing orders to disclose financial information in a dispute brought by his adopted 19-year-old son, Jonah.

"'Your arrest warrant will be issued today,' Jefferson Family Court Judge Angela Johnson said in imposing the sentence on Bevin, who was not present in the courtroom and attended by Zoom, though he had been ordered to appear in person for the hearing," said the report. "Bevin told the judge he had to travel out of state to attend the funeral Monday of the father of his ex-wife, Glenna Bevin, and was on his way back to Kentucky. He did not disclose his location. Bevin, at the hearing, interrupted the judge several times, seeking to correct her and arguing he was trying to provide the required information but needed more time to collect financial records."

None of this satisfied Johnson, who said, “Every litigant in the commonwealth has to provide such information. I cannot treat Mr. Bevin or Mrs. Bevin any differently.”

In this legal battle, Jonah, who was adopted from Ethiopia by the Bevins when he was 5, argues that his adoptive family abandoned him, leaving him to wander Utah homeless, tried to lure him into an one-way international trip back to his birth country, and that Bevin exhibited a pattern of abusive and manipulative behavior including threats that he could "take your life."

Bevin, a Republican, had such a contentious stint as governor that even many members of his own party, including his own lieutenant governor, disavowed him. One of his last acts after being defeated by now-Gov. Andy Beshear was to pardon several people convicted of serious offenses, including a child rapist he believed was innocent because his 9-year-old victim's hymen was intact.