Judge denies Matt Bevin’s motion to seal divorce, allows adoptive son to intervene
A Louisville judge ruled Friday the adopted son of former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin can intervene in his parents’ divorce case, potentially allowing him to get the financial support he says he was denied when his parents sent him to an abuse behavioral health facility in Jamaica.
Louisville Family Court Judge Angela Johnson handed down the ruling in Jonah Bevin’s favor, opening the door for Jonah to petition to get retroactive support from his now divorced parents, Matt and Former First Lady Glenna Bevin, until he gets his high school diploma, his attorney John Helmers told the Herald-Leader.
“It opens the door for him to be able to get child support back and perhaps going forward, and then also money for his education, for him to be able to get a true high school diploma,” Helmers said Friday afternoon.
“We think it’s an important win for him. It gives him a platform to be heard.”
Jonah’s requests for an emergency protective order against Matt and a restraining order against Glenna were granted by Johnson in March, after Jonah alleged his adoptive father exhibited a pattern of “threatening,” “intimidating” and “manipulative” toward him, including sending him to the abusive Jamaican facility and later pressuring him to board a flight to Ethiopia to meet his birth mother, whom Jonah said he’d been told most of his life was dead.
Johnson’s 22-page ruling also denies Matt and Glenna’s respective requests to keep their divorce settlement under confidential seal.
Glenna filed for filed for divorce from Matt in 2023, and it was finalized in February. Their divorce case has become inextricably wrapped up in the family court case involving Jonah, in part because of Jonah’s motion to intervene.
In a late April hearing, Matt Bevin’s attorney, Jesse Mudd, said his client is not currently the governor, has been out of office for longer than the four years he served in office and therefore he and Glenna are “private individuals.”
But Johnson disagreed.
“Even though Matthew is no longer governor of Kentucky, he once held the highest office in this state. Whether or not he knew it at the time he chose to run for office, in doing so, he chose to become a public figure for life,” Johnson wrote in the May 16 decision. “There is substantial public interest in how Matthew’s term as governor might have benefited him financially and how assets accrued during and immediately after his term in office are distributed.”
Jonah was adopted from Ethiopia by Matt and Glenna when he was 5. The Bevins have five biological children. Jonah is one of four children the former couple adopted from Ethiopia.
When Glenna filed for divorce from the one-term governor in 2023, Jonah Bevin was 16 and living at Atlantis Leadership Academy in Jamaica. He was later held in the care of Jamaican child welfare services after they discovered facility staff were physically and emotionally abusive.
“My parents didn’t tell the court anything about my circumstances in Jamaica at all,” Jonah wrote of the divorce in an April 21 filing.
“They didn’t try to include me or even check on how I was doing. It’s like I was invisible to them. Despite the fact that I was a minor, there were no provisions in the divorce that related to my support. There were no plans made for me to come home, no real guardian, and nobody checking on me.”
At the time of the filing, Matt called Jonah’s request to intervene a ploy to “garner media attention and invoke outrage,” but said the love he has for Jonah is “unshakable.”
Part of why Jonah says he is seeking financial support now from his parents is to earn his high school diploma or GED. The Bevins paid for Jonah to attend and graduate from Veritas Mission Academy in Florida in 2024, a school that bills itself as providing “classical education from a Christian worldview.”
But Jonah and his lawyers have since said his diploma from Veritas doesn’t carry any meaningful weight, since the school wasn’t accredited.
Johnson affirmed this perspective in her ruling, writing, “the accrediting agency claimed by the school — the National Association of Private Schools — is not recognized as a qualified accrediting entity by the Kentucky Department of Education, the Florida Department of Education, or the largest private school accreditation agency in the United States, the National Council on Private School Accreditation.”
The judge added, “As far as this court is aware, there is no reputable entity vouching for the adequacy of the educational standards at Veritas Mission Academy, (and) there is no evidence before the court regarding the credentials and qualifications of the school’s leadership or instructors.”
Johnson acknowledged the “profoundly unique” nature of the case, which is “unlike any divorce proceedings heard in this commonwealth.
“Kentucky parents are expected to provide adequate support and care, according to the means available to each family. Jonah is seeking child support from the ongoing income of his parents, not an equitable share of his parents’ assets,” she wrote.
“This is not akin to a child of divorce demanding their parents buy them a new car. Here, a family with ample financial means chose to send their child to an out-of-state private school with what appears to be no reliable accreditation instead of a public school or a private school with academic standards for which a qualified agency has vouched. Jonah is entitled to child support so long as he qualifies.”
This story was originally published May 16, 2025 at 1:14 PM.
