GEORGETOWN, Ky. (LEX 18) — An investigator with the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office was in Scott County Circuit Court Monday, releasing some of the first findings of the office’s probe into allegations involving grand jury hearings.
The attorney general’s office is reviewing a number of cases in the judicial circuit made up of Scott, Bourbon and Woodford counties after allegations that commonwealth’s attorney Sharon Muse allowed too many grand jurors to take part in indictment proceedings.
By Kentucky law, only 12 grand jurors are supposed to hear evidence and vote on indictments. It takes nine votes for a defendant to be indicted.
That attorney general’s office investigator told Judge Jeremy Mattox in open court Monday that the reviews into some of the cases in question did indicate that too many grand jurors were present. In those instances, the cases could be dismissed and re-indicted.
Many of the reviews are ongoing. As of Monday, the Kentucky Attorney General's Office said that reviews had been requested in about 150 cases.
The reports on the reviewed cases discussed Monday were not available ahead of court, so Judge Mattox did not immediately order re-indictment proceedings for any of the cases. Instead, he asked defense attorneys to file requests, and that those requests would be ruled on before the defendants’ next court date.
One of the more high-profile cases being revisited in the judicial circuit is that of 26-year-old Alexandria Allen. Allen, a former Scott County substitute teacher, is accused of raping a 15-year-old student.
In 2020, the student’s mom told LEX 18 that her son had a developmental delay and was also being tutored by Allen at the time.
Allen’s attorney filed a motion in March to learn if too many grand jurors had been present for her indictment, but as of Monday the attorney general’s office had not finished looking into her case.
