KY teacher, education officials exonerated in 2019 sex abuse case. Here’s why

A charge against a Franklin County middle school principal for failure to report child abuse has been dismissed, about two months after a jury found a teacher at her school not guilty of sexual abuse.

The charge against Whitney Allison, principal of Bondurant Middle School, was dismissed April 7 for no probable cause, according to online court records. She satisfied the law by properly investigating the allegations, her attorney Elliott Miller of Lexington told the Herald-Leader Thursday.

A February motion was filed by Miller to dismiss the 2019 charge against Allison. It said that a jury in February 2022 found former teacher Todd Smith not guilty of two counts of first-degree sexual abuse — the same charges that Allison allegedly failed to report. Smith is no longer employed at the school.

A female student alleged in 2019, when Allison was new to the job of Bondurant principal, that Smith had touched the student’s buttock as he walked past where the student was sitting, the motion said. A second student also alleged Smith inappropriately touched them in 2018, the motion said.

Miller said Allison reported the allegation appropriately and in a timely manner — the day after she learned of it — but was still criminally charged with failure to report.

“It would be a gross miscarriage of justice for the County Attorney to continue prosecuting Allison...,” the motion said.

A charge against another education leader in connection with the case was previously dropped.

In 2019, the county attorney dropped a charge of attempted bribery against Franklin County Superintendent Mark Kopp, also represented by Miller, saying he had not violated law. Prosecution had begun because Kopp had allegedly asked a deputy sheriff to do him a favor in regard to the failure to report charge against Allison.

John Olash, Smith’s Jefferson County attorney, told the Herald-Leader Thursday that the prosecution of Smith, Kopp, and Allison should have never occurred because there was never sufficient evidence to support criminal charges.