PRESTONSBURG, Ky. (LEX 18) — The judge in the Amber Spradlin murder case in Floyd County ruled Monday morning to allow work release for one of the men charged in the case, and also found the attorney for a different defendant in the case to be in contempt of court.
Prominent local dentist Michael McKinney II was released earlier this month on a $250,000 bond and ordered to remain on home incarceration and GPS monitoring. He later filed a motion to be allowed to go to work. During Monday’s hearing, the judge ruled to allow his work release so that he can train another dentist to “save” his business.
McKinney is charged with eight counts of complicity to tampering with evidence.
His son, Michael “MK” McKinney III is charged with murder and eight counts of complicity to tampering with evidence in the case.
Family friend Josh Mullins is also charged with eight counts of complicity to tampering with evidence. Mullins’ bond was set at $100,000, and Coleman reduced his bond Monday to $50,000 full cash despite objections by prosecutors.
MK McKinney’s bond was set at $5 million when he was arrested in July. His attorney revoked a motion to have his bond lowered.
Spradlin was found dead last June in Michael McKinney II’s home. The three charged were arrested on July 30 of this year.
On Aug. 9, Chief Regional Circuit Judge Eddy Coleman ordered that Randy Martin O’Neal, the attorney for MK McKinney, “show cause, if any he has, why he should not be held in contempt of this Court.”
The order was in response to an alleged issue with case law citations found in a motion to dismiss filed by O’Neal.
On Friday, O'Neal filed a court response stating that he'd mistakenly filed the wrong version of the motion to dismiss that did not contain the correct footnotes and case citations. He went on to say that the cases he cited do exist, but that they were not the case citations he'd meant to include in the motion to dismiss.
During Monday’s hearing, Coleman said he felt the case law citation issues were due to the use of artificial intelligence and called the citations used in the original motion to dismiss “phony.” Coleman ultimately found O'Neal to be in contempt and gave him a $500 fine.
O’Neal did not have any comment at the end of the hearing.
The three men charged were also arraigned Monday on their newest count of complicity to tampering with evidence, which alleges that a knife was planted in the couch where Spradlin was killed “to suggest it was the murder weapon knowing it was not used in the crime.”
