Kentucky judge accused of sex at work broke rules, should vacate office, panel rules
A Kentucky judge accused of having sex with a staffer at work has been ordered to vacate the office.
The Judicial Conduct Commission released the order against Judge Dawn Gentry Monday. Gentry, who was elected family-court judge in Kenton County in 2018, has been suspended with pay since January.
The panel filed a total of 12 charges of misconduct against Gentry, alleging that she broke a laundry list of rules on how judges and candidates for judicial office are supposed to conduct themselves.
The panel said that Gentry testified the alleged sexual activity in the office with her boyfriend was only simulated, as a prank.
But that disrupted the office, and there were plenty of other reasons to remove Gentry from office, the commission said.
Gentry’s violations included having court employees work on her campaign during the day while they were on the state payroll; pushing out a female employee so she could hire a man with whom she was having a relationship; approving pay for employees when they were working on her campaign or doing other non-court work; filing a misconduct complaint against an lawyer who had cooperated with the commission’s investigation; and being dishonest with the commission.
Gentry first told the commission she was not involved in a “sexual and/or romantic” relationship with a male employee, but later admitted that was a lie.
The commission noted that Gentry had a hidden folder on her cell phone with pictures of the man’s genitals.
The charges did not include direct criticisms of Gentry’s rulings, and she presented witnesses who said she is a competent judge, the commission said.
But the commission said ethics rules require that judges maintain the dignity of their office, avoid actual and perceived impropriety, and aspire to act in ways that ensure public confidence in their integrity, independence, impartiality and competence.
Gentry “failed in essentially every respect of this fundamental rule,” the commission said.
“This case does not involve one or two isolated occurrences, but instead involves a pattern of misconduct and repeated exercise of extremely poor judgment — on and off the bench . . .,” the commission said.
One of Gentry’s attorneys, Jeffrey A. Lawson, said she plans to appeal the ruling.
This story was originally published August 31, 2020 at 12:14 PM.
