Kentucky Court of Appeals orders former Gov. Matt Bevin released from jail

Valarie Honeycutt Spears, Lexington Herald-Leader on Sep 16, 2026

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky Court of Appeals on Wednesday granted emergency relief for former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, allowing him to be released from jail amid a 60-day sentence in Louisville Metro Corrections.

Online records on Wednesday night showed the court granted Bevin’s request for emergency release, but did not include details of the order. Bevin was in jail after a Jefferson County family court judge held him in contempt for repeatedly failing to disclose financial records in relation to a divorce and child support case. Bevin also had repeatedly failed to show up to court in person.

Multiple Kentucky media outlets reported that Appeals Court Judge Allison E. Jones said Bevin needed a way to purge himself from being held in contempt.

“If the Respondent Judge intended Matthew’s incarceration to remain a coercive civil-contempt sanction, Matthew must have a presently available means by which he can purge the contempt and obtain his release,” Jones wrote, according to multiple media outlets. “Yet, on the limited record presently before this Court, no such mechanism is apparent.”

Bevin had been in jail since Sept. 3. He was no longer in custody as of Wednesday evening, according to the jail’s online roster.

Bevin was arrested while working as an extra on a movie set of a Christmas movie being filmed in Bourbon County. He filed a motion for emergency relief to the Kentucky Court of Appeals shortly after being detained. The motion called the former governor’s sentence an unlawful civil-contempt punishment that didn’t give him any possibility of cooperating in his ongoing divorce and child support case.

“Each additional day of unlawful incarceration represents a deprivation of Matt’s liberty that cannot be later restored,” Bevin’s lawyer, Jesse Mudd, said in the motion.

Jefferson Family Court Judge Angela Johnson issued the arrest warrant on a charge of contempt on June 5. He was at-large for months.

The Courier-Journal reported Wednesday evening that “Appeals Judge Allison E. Jones granted the appeal, saying Bevin had ‘demonstrated the immediate and irreparable injury’ in his petition.”

Jones wrote that the emergency ruling “neither excuses Matthew’s prior noncompliance nor determines the merits of his petition,” according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

“It recognizes only that Matthew has made a colorable showing that his present incarceration may be unlawful and that, because the injury is the ongoing loss of his physical liberty, relief granted only after final disposition of this original action could come too late to provide a meaningful remedy.”