Misplacing felons, making threats and more: How KY parole officers got fired
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- Kentucky fired or pushed off payroll two dozen probation officers for misconduct.
- Termination letters cite ignored supervision, falsified notes, missed drug tests.
- Officer cites heavy caseloads, poor training and faulty equipment in discrimination suit.
When Janet Whelan was fired in the fall of 2024 as a Kentucky probation and parole officer based in Louisville, her bosses said she had ignored her public safety job duties dozens of times over the past two years.
Whelan wasn’t supervising the offenders assigned to her, they said. Instead, she copied and pasted her case notes to make it look like she was tracking their progress. Offenders with addictions weren’t drug tested. New criminal convictions weren’t caught and reported. Home visits weren’t conducted.
Whelan’s Sept. 28, 2024, termination letter detailing the allegations against her ran 24 pages.
The letter noted that she already had a reprimand and a performance-improvement plan on her record for similar work problems in the past year.
In response, Whelan sued the Kentucky Department of Corrections for discrimination. The department’s Division of Probation and Parole is “a hostile, toxic, chaotic workplace” where it’s hard for anyone to properly do their job, Whelan said in her pending lawsuit.
Whelan said she was given an unrealistically large caseload and inadequate training and support from managers, and the Department of Corrections’ software and equipment often don’t function. On top of that, she said, she was mocked because of her weight and called a “bitch” by colleagues.
“They said I was behind on my caseload. But everybody is behind on their caseloads. They’re overworked,” Whelan told the Herald-Leader in a recent interview. “We were down eight officers at one time when I was there, toward the end.”
“They tell you when you start working there, like, it’s almost impossible to get fired unless you did something really wrong,” she added. “Like, you really mess something up or someone got killed on your watch, something like that. But then something like this happens.”
Using public records, the Herald-Leader identified at least two dozen probation and parole officers over the last several years who were pushed off the payroll by the state of Kentucky, fined thousands of dollars for ethics violations, or, in two cases, convicted of felonies.
Ten of those officers were fired while still in their initial 12-month probationary periods. No explanation was given in their dismissal letters or personnel files.
In a prepared statement, the Kentucky Department of Corrections said it did not have to tell those officers why they were sacked, and it will offer no public reason, either.
“I know a couple of them just got walked out, and I was blown away,” Whelan said. “One of them was a friend of mine, and the other one — I didn’t know her real well, but she seemed to be doing fine. I mean, she was trying to learn the process, and let me tell you, probation and parole is not an easy job. There’s a lot to learn.”
Seven officers were fired or resigned with prejudice during investigations for pursuing an inappropriate relationship with offenders, according to their personnel files.
Among the other officers for whom explanations were given in their personnel files:
Jordan Mudd
Jordan H. Mudd resigned with prejudice while under investigation Jan. 23, 2024.
Mudd neglected his job, lost track of offenders and backdated paperwork to cover up his failures, investigators wrote.
For example, one of Mudd’s probationers died Feb. 18, 2023, but Mudd submitted false supervision reports over the next few months to pretend he was staying in touch with them, including one contact allegedly made while the offender was dead and Mudd was on vacation in Italy.
Mudd’s personnel file already included a five-day suspension for poor work performance in 2020 and subsequent reprimands for poor work performance in 2021 and 2023.
Vinson Taylor
Vinson Taylor was allowed to resign with prejudice on March 26, 2024, after receiving a termination letter citing him for misconduct two weeks earlier.
Investigators said Taylor bungled the registration paperwork for a homeless sex offender, leading to her arrest for noncompliance because she wasn’t at the address Taylor listed for her.
Taylor’s personnel file already included a three-day suspension for unprofessional behavior and a reprimand for poor work performance, both in 2023.
Anasha Acton
Anasha Acton was fired Aug. 16, 2023.
Investigators said Acton failed to supervise scores of offenders on her caseload by ignoring her basic job duties, such as conducting home visits, ordering drug tests, tracking offenders’ financial obligations, checking on employment, reporting major violations and attending revocation hearings in court.
Acton used her Department of Corrections computer access to look at the file of an offender who was dating a family friend to see if he had outstanding warrants pending against him, investigators said.
When she was fired, Acton’s personnel file already included a one-day suspension for unprofessional behavior in 2022 and reprimands for poor work performance in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
John Veague
John Veague resigned with prejudice while under investigation Sept. 12, 2023.
Investigators said Veague let an offender stay at his home in Florida. Veague later complained that the offender wrecked the walls of his house.
The offender told one of Veague’s colleagues that a storm caused the damage, but the offender had a history of similar destructive behavior at a hospital when he believed he heard voices coming from air vents, investigators wrote.
Colleagues said they never could determine the exact nature of Veague’s off-duty interactions with offenders on supervision, but they worried he was “crossing professional boundaries,” investigators wrote.
Carl Crowe
Carl “Andy” Crowe resigned with prejudice while under investigation Jan. 3, 2024.
Crowe made racist threats to a Black colleague about putting on a white robe, burning crosses in her yard and dragging her behind his pickup truck, investigators wrote. Crowe was angry because the colleague had corrected him, they wrote.
In an interview with investigators, Crowe acknowledged his actions and said it wouldn’t look good, given the Black offenders on his caseload, if the public learned he made comments like this.
“I asked him, rhetorically, what would happen if the media picked up on this. He said that it would be a black eye,” an investigator wrote.
Raymond Bradley
Raymond Bradley was fired Dec. 20, 2023.
A Kentucky State Police detective discovered that Bradley posted inappropriate videos and photos on his social media, with profane, racist song lyrics; images of drugs, drug paraphernalia and weapons; and recognizable symbols of his state law enforcement job, such as a probation and parole officer’s vest, investigators wrote.
In one social media photo, Bradley posed in the bathroom of a Subway sandwich shop wearing a Department of Corrections shirt and clutching his state-issued gun at a 45-degree angle.
“Protecting and serving,” read the caption.
Probation and parole officers aren’t supposed to pull their guns in public without legitimate reason, much less pose with their guns in public places on social media, investigators wrote. Asked if he had reviewed the department’s social media policy, Bradley replied, “Glanced over it,” investigators wrote.
Gregory Cooper
Gregory Cooper was fired Nov. 14, 2023.
Cooper brought his personal gun, a Glock 23 .40 caliber pistol, to work at the Monticello probation and parole office and made intimidating statements to colleagues, investigators said. “You’re scared of me, aren’t you?” he asked a supervisor.
Then he said he was going to call the state employee assistance program, which helps state workers with emotional and behavioral issues, investigators said.
While he was being interviewed about that incident, Cooper acknowledged that he wore his Department of Corrections jacket and badge, and carried his gun, while moonlighting at a second job at a local retailer, although he had not gotten the necessary state approval for outside employment.
Cooper also had problems getting his probation and parole work done and putting in the required hours at his state job, investigators said.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to show that probation and parole officer Vinson Taylor was allowed to resign with prejudice on March 26, 2024, two weeks after the state Department of Corrections sent him a termination letter.
This story was originally published January 15, 2026 at 4:45 AM.
