FRANKFORT — A Laurel County Grand Jury has indicted London Mayor Randall Weddle on four felony counts, alleging he made $93,000 in excessive contributions to the 2023 campaign of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and the Kentucky Democratic Party.
The indictment was returned Tuesday afternoon and announced in a brief news release by Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, whose office is leading the investigation.
Each of the counts is a Class D felony punishable by a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of $10,000.
The indictment alleges that in the last days of 2022 Weddle violated the state law that limits the amount a person can give to a political committee. At the time of the contributions, the limit was $2,000 per election to a candidate’s campaign and $5,000 to the state-regulated committee of a political party.
According to the three-page indictment, Weddle used “his personal credit card” to make nine specific contributions totaling $18,000 in the names of other people to Beshear’s campaign and 15 contributions in the names of other people totaling $75,000 to the Kentucky Democratic Party.
The indictment shed little new light on details of the massive donations by Weddle’s family, friends and associates first brought to public attention by a story in the Kentucky Lantern in April 2023.
Coleman, a Republican, speaking during a brief press availability later Thursday, said the indictment relates to “an issue that has seen a great deal of public attention for many years.” He said he could not comment on the indictment. He also said his decisions as a prosecutor were not motivated by a desire to bring attention to allegations involving contributions to Democratic committees.
“I’m standing here today announcing this indictment for the people of London, Kentucky,”
Coleman said. “They know the allegations, but in their eyes, before today’s indictment, nothing was being done to hold anyone accountable.”
Coleman said Weddle will be arraigned April 15 in Laurel Circuit Court. Coleman declined to take questions about the indictment.
Weddle’s attorney Guthrie True, of Frankfort, also made mention of how long investigations of the case have lingered. “It’s deeply disappointing that the attorney general’s office would seek an indictment on a matter the facts of which have been known for nearly three years,” True said. “It seems totally calculated to cause embarrassment to Mayor Weddle and to interfere with his mayoral campaign.” Weddle is seeking reelection as mayor this year. The primary election is May 19.
Eric Hyers, who managed Beshear’s two campaigns for governor, released a statement saying that when the campaign and Kentucky Democratic Party learned of the excess contributions during the 2023 campaign they immediately refunded the contributions to Weddle. “We trust the justice system to determine if these were intentional campaign violations by the donor, but the campaign and the Kentucky Democratic Party did exactly what they should — report and refund the contributions,” Hyers said.
The Lantern published a story in April 2023 that revealed massive bundles of contributions from Weddle’s family, employees, friends and associates — totaling at least $305,500, perhaps much more — all given to help Beshear win reelection that year.
The Lantern’s story outlined not only the large amount of money listed as donations by the Beshear campaign and Kentucky Democratic Party (KDP), but other unusual aspects of the contributions such as most of the donations were for maximum amounts from donors who had never before made a large political contribution.
Beshear and Hyers declined to talk to the Lantern about the Weddle-related contributions before that story was published.
At a news conference days after the story was published Beshear avoided directly answering a question about the unusual contributions. “We’ve had support from Democrats and Republicans, thousands and thousands and thousands of people from across Kentucky and across the United States. But all of those had been voluntary,” Beshear said.
But shortly after that news conference, Weddle has said, he reported a problem to Beshear: Much of the money attributed in disclosure reports as contributions from his family and friends had actually been donated on his personal credit card. Weddle contended this had been inadvertent and done because Beshear’s chief fundraiser, Lucas Johnson, had indicated it was OK to advance campaign contributions of other people in such a manner.
After hearing from Weddle, attorneys for Beshear’s campaign and the Kentucky Democratic Party told the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance about the matter. The campaign and party refunded to Weddle $202,000 — the amount of excess donations he said he had made on his credit card.
Because he was then running for governor against Beshear, Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron said state ethics laws prohibited him from launching an investigation of his opponent. Cameron referred the matter to the FBI, which has declined to say whether it is investigating the contributions.
Soon after Beshear beat Cameron in the general election, the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance began an investigation. The registry has the authority to impose fines of up to $5,000 per violation of campaign finance laws, but if the registry determines that a violation is intentional it can refer the case to the attorney general for possible criminal violation.
The investigation nearly came to an end in February of 2025 when the registry staff recommended a finding that Weddle’s many violations of the law were unintentional and that he be fined $5,000 per violation. But registry board members complained the staff investigation still left many important questions unanswered. Board members — Democrats and Republicans alike — did not want to surrender the option of referring the matter for criminal prosecution and voted 6-0 to continue the investigation.
The Lantern obtained records of the registry investigation through the Kentucky Open Records Act. The investigation found that — despite his early insistence that he had nothing to do with the Beshear contributions — Weddle orchestrated the contributions of late 2022.
The records included 86 text messages between Weddle and Beshear fundraiser Lucas Johnson between Dec. 27 and Dec. 31 in which the pair scrambled to gather contributions before a deadline of midnight Dec. 31. Johnson suggested names to Weddle of Weddle’s family and business associates who gave big exactly one year before. Weddle transmitted contributions to the portals of Beshear political committees. Johnson confirmed the contributions had been delivered.
At the end of the exchange on the night of Dec. 30, 2022 Weddle texted, “I have got you $219K this week.”
Johnson replied, “Yessir you have! … Thank you so much. I’ve let the man know.”
--30--
Written by Tom Loftus. Cross-posted from the Kentucky Lantern.
Comments
