The Courier Journal accused the Louisville Metro Police Department and Jefferson County attorneys of improperly withholding or moving out of local custody files connected to the department’s Explorer Program sexual-abuse investigation. The dispute concerned approximately 738,000 files found in 9,700 folders—not proof that every file documented abuse—and whether local officials remained responsible for producing the records after they were transferred to the FBI.
The Explorer allegations
The scandal began to unfold publicly on Oct. 14, 2016, when LMPD announced that an officer associated with the youth mentoring program was under investigation. On March 10, 2017, a 22-year-old identified as N.C. filed a lawsuit alleging that officers Kenneth Betts and Brandon Wood sexually abused him while he participated in the program. The lawsuit also alleged attempts to cover up the abuse. Six other plaintiffs later joined related civil litigation.
Mayor Greg Fischer suspended the Explorer Program on March 13, 2017, and appointed former U.S. Attorney Kerry Harvey to review the city’s response four days later. The FBI began investigating the program on April 3, 2017, according to a contemporaneous timeline.
Harvey’s 2018 report found mistakes, policy violations and errors in judgment in the department’s handling of the allegations. It concluded, however, that the review had not found an ongoing, orchestrated effort by senior officials to conceal misconduct.
Conflicting accounts of the records
On May 28, 2019, The Courier Journal requested records relating to the Explorer Program and the investigative file concerning sexual-abuse allegations against Wood. LMPD denied the request the next day, saying the FBI was the custodian of the records.
During the newspaper’s appeal, Assistant Jefferson County Attorney Annale Taylor wrote on Sept. 3, 2019, that “when the investigation was taken by the FBI, all copies of the investigative materials… were physically removed from the premises, digital devices and servers of LMPD.”
That account conflicted with a June 6, 2019, email from LMPD Sgt. Robert Banta, who said the department could provide documents produced before the federal investigation began on April 1, 2017.
“All that information still resides in the PIU (Professional Integrity Unit) case file and is available to the county attorney’s office.”
Banta also told the county attorney’s office that investigators would locate and provide the requested material.
On Sept. 18, 2019, LMPD acknowledged that it had located approximately 9,000 documents related to the investigation in “hidden folders.” The department said Louisville Metro’s information-technology staff had removed the material from its system and provided it to the FBI.
In Open Records Decision 19-ORD-198, issued Oct. 24, 2019, the Kentucky attorney general’s office found that LMPD had violated the Open Records Act by failing to search for responsive records, initially failing to cite a statutory basis for withholding them and denying the request based on an erroneous presumption that it did not possess the records. Louisville Metro appealed that decision.
The larger collection
In an Oct. 21, 2020, letter “amending previous factual statements made in error,” Assistant County Attorney Roy Denny said the material removed from LMPD’s system on Sept. 10, 2019, consisted not of about 9,000 files but of 9,700 folders containing approximately 738,000 files—more than 470 gigabytes of data. The letter said 358.28 megabytes remained on local servers.
According to the account later summarized in the Kentucky Court of Appeals record, the removed files remained available through an encrypted backup for 30 days. After that period they could be overwritten, and the encryption key was permanently deleted.
“The Explorer case represents a total breakdown in trust between police and teens who had an interest in the law enforcement profession. To now dodge the public's access to these documents speaks to an institutional disregard for the Open Records Act and the very residents LMPD is to serve and protect. My frustration with how it's been handled only underscores our commitment to dig even deeper and hold those in power to account.”
Courier Journal Editor Richard Green said.
Metro Council President David James also criticized the city’s handling of the records on Nov. 11, 2020.
“It’s very disturbing to me that either the county attorney’s office or the police department was so dead-set on making sure those records never reached the public.”
Councilman Anthony Piagentini made a still broader allegation that day:
There aren’t the appropriate words to describe how indefensible this is. This Administration oversaw the sexual exploitation of minors and then deleted evidence. I will be speaking with my colleagues about next steps to hold this Administration accountable.
Whether the records were destroyed remained disputed
R. Kenyon Meyer, an outside lawyer hired by the county attorney’s office, said his review was continuing but that he had found no evidence that the office violated the Open Records Act or otherwise acted improperly. Meyer maintained that “no records were destroyed” because the FBI retained the material and argued that the newspaper could seek the records from the federal agency.
The Courier Journal had submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI, but that request was denied. Its lawyers argued that transferring the files and eliminating local access effectively destroyed LMPD’s ability to comply with Kentucky’s open-records law.
“They have destroyed their ability to comply with the open records law, and they did it purposely, and they didn’t tell the truth about it. They can't require us to go elsewhere to get those documents.”
Courier Journal attorney Jon Fleischaker said.
“The law requires them to truthfully tell us what records they have in their possession. The law requires them to maintain the integrity of the documents. What they did is quite the opposite. That is a violation of the open records law and potentially a violation of the law of tampering with evidence.”
County Attorney Mike O’Connell said he hired Meyer to conduct an outside review of the newspaper’s allegations.
“The newspaper made significant claims, and I felt it was important to engage someone at the highest level with no connection to my office to assist in this matter. There are serious disagreements regarding the allegations made by the Courier Journal. Those will be addressed as expeditiously as possible. My immediate action should show that I take the matter seriously.”
As of the article’s original publication on Nov. 13, 2020, no court had found that officials intentionally concealed, deleted or tampered with evidence. The attorney general had found violations in LMPD’s handling of the records request, while allegations of willful concealment and effective destruction remained contested.
The criminal cases
By November 2020, Wood and Betts had pleaded guilty in federal cases connected to their conduct in the Explorer Program. Wood was sentenced to 70 months in prison for attempted enticement of a minor. Betts was sentenced to 16 years after pleading guilty to enticement, attempted enticement, child-pornography and related offenses, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky.
A federal grand jury indicted a third officer, Brad Lee Schuhmann, on Nov. 3, 2020, on a charge of deprivation of rights under color of law. The indictment alleged that Schuhmann sexually abused a minor he met through the program while acting in a position of authority or special trust. Schuhmann resigned from LMPD on Nov. 4. At the time of publication, the indictment remained an accusation and had not been adjudicated.
The related civil litigation remained pending.