(LEX 18) — An interview from a 2022 investigation made national headlines last week after a mention in it of killed Letcher County District Court Judge Kevin Mullins came to light.
Mullins was shot and killed in his chambers at the courthouse in September. His shooting was captured by a surveillance camera placed in his office. The Letcher County sheriff at the time, Mickey Stines, was charged with murder in his death.
The newly released audio was of an interview by a state attorney general’s office investigator of a woman who was at the center of a rape case involving a former Letcher County sheriff’s deputy.
The former deputy, Ben Fields, pleaded guilty in January to third-degree rape, third-degree sodomy, tampering with a prisoner’s monitoring device and second-degree perjury, according to court records.
The investigation into Fields began in 2022 after the victim in the case filed a lawsuit against him alleging that he exchanged favorable treatment for sexual favors while acting as her home incarceration officer.
During the attorney general office’s interview with the woman in that case in 2022, she claimed that she’d seen a video of Mullins having sex with a woman in his chambers at the courthouse. LEX 18 obtained the audio of the interview from the Office of the Attorney General after it was covered by national outlets last week.
Mullins was never accused of anything related to the allegation in the interview or charged with anything. LEX 18 asked the attorney general’s office whether they ever investigated the claims against Mullins, and they told us to put in an open records request.
In the 2022 interview, the woman told the investigator that she recognized Mullins’ office because it was where she’d met with Fields. She also said that she recognized Mullins in the video because she’d been before him in court.
She told the investigator that the man who had the video claimed to have numerous similar videos of other people that were on VHS style tapes, but she said she’d only seen one of the videos.
According to the Administrative Office of the Courts, 18 additional cameras were installed at the Letcher County Courthouse after the woman’s federal lawsuit against Fields in 2022. The cameras were placed at the request of “the judges, circuit court clerk and sheriff (Stines).”
“These cameras were placed in various locations in the building, including the office areas of the circuit and district judges and the Office of Circuit Court Clerk,” according to the Administrative Office of the Courts. “There were cameras in the courthouse previously, but not in Judge Mullins’ chambers. The officials were involved in choosing camera placement and were provided monitors to view the camera coverage in their offices.”
