Ex-Kentucky school official pardoned by Bevin had been convicted in child porn case

Ben Tobin , Billy Kobin | Louisville Courier Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin issues pardons, commutations for hundreds Using his executive powers, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin issued hundreds of pardons and commutations during his last days in office in 2019.

A former Laurel County school administrator who was pardoned this month by Gov. Matt Bevin had been sentenced to prison in 2013 after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography.

Charles Douglas Phelps, 60, was also ordered in November 2013 to register as a sex offender for 20 years after pleading guilty to possession of sexual matter depicting a minor in a sexual performance and tampering with a witness.

But Bevin's pardon, which the Republican governor issued during his last day in office on Dec. 9, means Phelps will be removed from the sex offender registry.

Phelps would no longer required to report where he lives or to remain more than 1,000 yards from a school or child care facility, as Kentucky statutes dictate.

"None of that is a requirement anymore due to the fact that he got a pardon," said Jackie Steele, the commonwealth's attorney for Knox and Laurel counties who prosecuted Phelps. "If someone were to attempt to do a criminal history background check, there would be no notification to them of any such conviction. It's as if it never happened."

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But one of Phelps' attorneys in his 2013 case, Conrad Cessna, said that Phelps voluntarily agreed to give up his teaching license and certification after he was first indicted in 2012.

According to the minutes of a Feb. 12, 2018, Education Professional Standards Board meeting, Phelps agreed to "neither apply for nor be issued nor renew any teaching, administrative, or emergency certificate in the Commonwealth of Kentucky at any time in the future."

Cessna said Phelps is "just glad to have this entire incident behind him."

"I feel confident he will not be a danger to society," Cessna said.

Phelps is one of hundreds of offenders pardoned by Bevin in his final weeks in office. Several pardons have evoked controversy, including one for a man convicted of raping a child in Kenton County and others for offenders convicted of murder.

"This conviction resulted from a process long in duration, long on accusation, long on drama and short on evidence," Bevin wrote in a Dec. 9 pardon order. "It was sloppy at best."

The "sloppy at best" description was also included in Bevin's pardon of Micah Schoettle, who was convicted last year of raping a 9-year-old in Kenton County and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

However, Steele said that, given Phelps' guilty plea, the "wording in the pardon is inaccurate and wholly inappropriate."

"I couldn't even begin to think what Matt Bevin was doing when he was reviewing these to come to the decisions he made in some of them," Steele said. "Some of these pardons he's done across the state is a slap in the face of the victims in these cases and the justice system as a whole. The commonwealth of Kentucky has taken a black eye because of his actions."

Phelps, of London, Kentucky, was the director of pupil personnel for Laurel County Schools when he was indicted in January 2012 on three counts of first-degree sexual abuse and two counts of unlawful transaction with a minor, according to court records.

Those charges stemmed from Phelps allegedly having sexual contact with a 17-year-old and 14-year-old girl and giving both of them alcohol in November 2011, The Sentinel-Echo reported.

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He was suspended during an investigation into the allegations before stepping away from his position with the school district in February 2012, the London newspaper reported.

But when the 14-year-old girl reportedly recanted her claims just before Phelps was scheduled to go to trial in February 2013, Steele requested the charges related to the alleged contact with the girl be dropped.

A sexual abuse charge related to Phelps' alleged contact with the 17-year-old girl remained, but the girl reportedly failed to appear in court in October 2013 when the case was set for trial.

A new trial was set for December 2013, according to court records, which also state that Phelps had been on home incarceration and ordered to not have any contact with the victims or their families nor use cellphones or computers after posting bond earlier in the year.

However, Phelps was put back in jail on Oct. 9, 2013, after an unspecified violation of his bond conditions, according to court records.

Later that month, he was indicted on related charges of possessing matter portraying a sexual performance by a minor, tampering with a witness and bribing a witness, records show.

Phelps' cellphone had reportedly been confiscated and pictures of minors engaging in sexual acts were found on the phone. The indictment also alleged that Phelps told the 17-year-old witness to not appear and testify at the trial and offered her money to "influence her testimony" at the trial on the sex abuse charge.

Phelps entered a guilty plea to the new charges and was released again on home incarceration ahead of a November 2013 trial.

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As part of the guilty plea, the remaining sexual abuse charge was dismissed, and the bribery charge was later dropped as well, according to court records.

Phelps was finally sentenced in November 2013 to two years in prison on the charge of possessing child porn and one year in prison on the tampering with witness charge.

He was ordered to serve the sentences consecutively for a total of three years in prison, according to records.

The Sentinel-Echo in London reported that Phelps was released in December 2014 after receiving credit for time served on home incarceration.

His attorneys, Cessna and William Gary Crabtree, had attempted in March 2014 to get shock probation for Phelps, but a special judge who took over the case after Laurel Circuit Judge Thomas Jensen had recused himself denied the early release request.

Special Judge Jeffrey Burdette reportedly wrote in his denial of the shock probation request that Phelps "held a position of trust over many young people in the community" and "could not be managed in the community on bond."

The pardon from Bevin was not well-received by Steele, who has also been critical of the governor's recent pardoning of Patrick Baker.

Steele had prosecuted Baker and two other defendants for a fatal 2014 Knox County home invasion, with Baker serving two years of a 19-year prison sentence before he was freed last week thanks to Bevin's pardon.

The Courier Journal first reported last week that Baker's brother and sister-in-law hosted a fundraiser at their Corbin home last year to raise over $21,000 that went toward retiring debt from Bevin's 2015 gubernatorial campaign.

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The two other defendants remain in prison.

"None of it makes sense. … It's dumbfounding and confusing both to myself and victims across this state," Steele said. "And the real slap in the face is that none of these victims were ever notified. This was done in the dark of night in his way out of office, and there was no notification given to any of these victims."

Bevin's flurry of pardons — he issued 254 of them between his Nov. 5 loss to Andy Beshear and the end of his term on Dec. 9 — has drawn scrutiny and calls for further investigations from Democrats and Republicans.

The Courier Journal reported Thursday that Kenton County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders announced the first official investigation into the pardons, with Sanders focusing on Schoettle, the convicted Kenton County child rapist.

Steele said Bevin's pardons show that crime victims in Kentucky "deserve better."

"He failed them," Steele said.

Contact Ben Tobin at bjtobin@gannett.com and 502-582-4181 or follow on Twitter @TobinBen. Reach Billy Kobin at bkobin@courierjournal.com or 502-582-7030. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: subscribe.courier-journal.com.