Kentucky attorney who traded favors for nude images could lose cases and salary
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The Kentucky Prosecutors Advisory Council unanimously voted Friday to have the Kentucky attorney general’s office take over all criminal cases from Commonwealth’s Attorney Ronnie Goldy Jr., who was suspended from practice for trading favors with a defendant in exchange for nude images of her.
The nine-member council also voted to strip Goldy of his salary.
The Courier Journal reported Sept. 17 that the Supreme Court had voted to temporarily suspend Goldy, who prosecutes cases in Bath, Menifee, Montgomery and Rowan counties, based on a petition that called him a danger to the public.
Only the General Assembly can impeach an elected officer.
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The Courier Journal disclosed in July that Goldy had exchanged 230 pages of Facebook messages with defendant Misty Helton, for whom he promised to do favors in court in exchange for videos and photographs of her.
Testifying Sept. 8 in a hearing on the suspension, Goldy said he didn’t remember any of the messages, but he didn’t deny exchanging them with Helton, who lives in Salt Lick.
She confirmed them, however, and also said they had sexual relations.
A hearing officer who recommended the suspension said Goldy violated an ethics rule barring prosecutors from communicating with a defendant represented by counsel.
The Prosecutors Advisory Council, which is chaired by Attorney General Daniel Cameron, presides over the financial administration of the state prosecutorial system, which consists of 177 commonwealth's and county attorneys and their employees.
A spokeswoman for Cameron did not immediately respond to questions about whether he will heed the request to take over criminal cases in the 21st Circuit.
State law says an attorney general may intervene to do that in the event of a person's “incapacity, refusal without sufficient grounds, inability, conflict of interest.”
A prosecutor’s salary may be suspended for failure to perform their duty.
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The Kentucky Commonwealth’s Attorneys Association already voted to expel Goldy.
In one conversation between Goldy and Helton, on June 5, 2018, he asked, “When do I get to see a video?” She replied, “When do I not have a warrant? Hahaha.”
In another, she asked, “What do I need to do to get that warrant taken care of — besides the obvious, lmao." Goldy responded, “Let me ask the judge tomorrow.”
In a third, she agreed to make another video for him because he got a bond taken care of for her on a Sunday.
In the petition to suspend him, an inquiry commission said he had “abused his office, abused the trust of the public and brought the legal system of Kentucky into disrepute.
“His conduct shows a clear lack of fitness to practice law in Kentucky, much less represent the commonwealth in serious criminal matters,” says the pleading, filed by the Kentucky Bar Association’s chief bar counsel Jane Herrick.
Boston College law professor R. Michael Cassidy, the author of “Prosecutorial Ethics,” a leading work on the topic, told The Courier Journal in July that “even a fifth-grader" would know what Goldy did was “inappropriate and doesn’t pass the smell test.”
Andrew Wolfson: 502-582-7189; awolfson@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @adwolfson.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Commonwealth's Attorney Ronnie Goldy Jr. could lose cases and salary
