Pardoned KY man remains in jail on murder charge after prosecutor objects to release
A magistrate judge put a hold Wednesday on releasing a Kentucky man from jail who was pardoned on a state homicide conviction but faces a new federal murder charge.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Hanly A. Ingram kept Patrick Baker in custody after a hearing Wednesday based on a prosecutor’s objection to his release.
Ingram issued a decision Tuesday outlining pretrial release conditions for Baker, including home incarceration with electronic monitoring of his whereabouts.
Federal prosecutors had argued Baker would pose a potential threat to the community if released before trial.
However, Ingram said in his decision that strict bond conditions would “sufficiently mitigate the evident danger risks.”
On Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna Reed objected to Ingram’s decision and asked that it be revoked, which would keep Baker in jail.
Ingram’s initial order said Baker would be released after a hearing Wednesday and confirmation that any guns have been removed from his house and that any controlled substances have been secured so he has no access, but Reed asked that that order be put on hold while she appeals it.
A U.S. District judge will decide the issue of whether to let Baker out on bond before his trial.
At Wednesday’s hearing, an attorney for Baker objected to keeping him in jail, but Ingram overruled the objection and returned Baker to custody.
Baker, 43, was convicted of reckless homicide in the death of a Knox County drug dealer shot twice in the chest as two men tried to rob him of money and pain pills.
A judge sentenced him to 19 years in prison in December 2017, but just two years later, then-Gov. Matt Bevin commuted Baker’s sentence and pardoned him.
Many of the hundreds of commutations and pardons Bevin granted in his final days in office were controversial, but Baker’s drew particular attention because members of his family had held a fundraiser for Bevin in 2018. A prominent Republican donor also contacted Bevin to put in a good word for him.
A federal grand jury indicted Baker on a new charge of killing Donald Mills during the commission of a drug offense. Baker has been in jail since being arrested May 30.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Rob Eggert, one of Baker’s defense attorneys, proposed that Baker be released but from jail confined to the home he shares with his fiancee, Natasha Collins, and their 3-month-old daughter in Frankfort, with electronic monitoring of his location.
Baker also would undergo drug testing and searches of his home, Eggert said.
Eggert pointed out that Baker is presumed innocent, and that he had no violations while he was out on bond for three years awaiting trial on the earlier state court charge.
There is no specific evidence Baker would be a danger to the community, and he is not a flight risk, Eggert said.
Collins and Baker’s father are both willing to put up their houses to secure his release, Eggert said.
However, Reed said in response that “no plot of land or house can lessen the danger” posed by Baker.
Reed said several factors argue for keeping Baker locked up pending trial, including the potential for him to be sentenced to death or life in prison if he is convicted, a history of violence and weapon use in Mills’ death, a history of abusing drugs and a lack of employment.
Baker has been fixing up their house, takes care of their daughter and often helps her parents, his fiancee testified last week.
Baker has argued he was innocent in Mills’ death and was wrongly convicted in state court, but Reed said the weight of the evidence against him is strong.
Witnesses said Baker planned the robbery, recruited others for the crime, got a gun for an accomplice who went into Mills’ house with him, bought two sets of plastic handcuffs as part of a plan to pretend to pose as police, and had a Google Earth photo of Mills’ house, Reed said in a memorandum.
At Mills’ house, Baker allegedly kicked in the door and looked for cash and drugs while an accomplice, Christopher Wagner, went with Mills’ pregnant wife and three children into a bedroom.
When he didn’t find money and a large quantity of drugs, Baker shot Mills twice in the chest as his family listened, then went with Wagner to Bell County, where Baker burned his clothing and took apart the gun to dispose of it, Reed said.
Wagner later helped police recover buried pieces of the gun, and a forensics test matched it to shell casings left behind in Mills’ bedroom, Reed said.
“In terms of dangerousness, the defendant’s crime encompasses the trifecta of drugs, guns, and violence” that Congress has highlighted in terms or pretrial detention, Reed argued.
Ingram said in his decision that the risk the court needed to manage through bond conditions “is the return to dangerous drug use, involvement in trafficking, and related violent, potentially deadly, conduct.”
Ingram said it weighed in Baker’s favor that he had no reported violations while on bond for more than three years in the state case, and that there are no reports of misconduct by Baker since he was pardoned.
In addition to home incarceration, the other conditions Ingram set out for Baker to be released include limiting his travel to the federal Eastern District of Kentucky; no alcohol use; no use of drugs except any legally prescribed; and drug testing.
This story was originally published June 8, 2021 at 9:47 AM.
