KY mayor indicted on campaign finance charges. It’s not his first controversy
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- Mayor Randall Weddle indicted on four felony counts over 2022 campaign donations.
- Council removed Weddle Sept. 5, 2025; courts later reinstated him amid appeals.
- FBI probe, city investigations and state audit target Weddle’s administration.
London Mayor Randall Weddle’s turbulent tenure as the top city executive took another turn Tuesday after a special grand jury indicted him on felony charges related to election donations made to Gov. Andy Beshear’s 2022 campaign.
In a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman announced Weddle had been indicted on four counts of exceeding campaign contribution limits to Beshear’s reelection campaign and the Kentucky Democratic Party. All four charges are Class D felonies.
Weddle has served as London’s mayor since 2022 in a tenure that has embroiled the city government in public controversy. The mayor himself has been named or is a party to more than a dozen federal and state lawsuits.
The mayor did not immediately respond to a Herald-Leader request for comment Tuesday, and a spokesperson for Beshear’s campaign denied wrong doing on the part of the governor and the KDP.
On Sept. 5, 2025, the London City Council unanimously agreed to remove Weddle from office after determining he committed misconduct or willful neglect on five of the 11 charges the council brought against him at the time.
Of those, the council voted unanimously that three of the counts warranted removing him from office. Those include Weddle executing a $5 million mortgage on Levi Jackson State Park and the Laurel County Fairgrounds without the council’s approval, his failure to fill ethics board vacancies in a timely manner and not properly publishing a city ordinance.
Weddle appealed the impeachment ruling Sept. 11 in Laurel County Circuit Court. A little more than two weeks later, a special judge presiding over the case, David Williams, reinstated Weddle as mayor.
Despite a plea from Weddle to work together, the council appealed the Williams’ reinstatement order hours later. After a panel of judges from the state Court of Appeals denied the council’s appeal, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Weddle can remain in office and the effort to oust him should be sent back to the court of appeals.
The case remains ongoing in the appeals court.
Since being reinstated, Weddle and the council continued to fight over city business, including a council-proposed budget that threatened to cut several city departments and jobs. That dispute also spilled over into the courts, as city employees filed an employee discrimination lawsuit against the council, claiming the proposed budget would cause irreparable damage and was retaliatory against the employees.
The council argued the city was facing a fiscal emergency and the budget cuts were necessary. Eleventh Judicial Circuit Chief Circuit Judge Samuel Spalding, who issued a temporary restraining order that prevented the council from implementing the budget, encouraged the council and Weddle to resolve the issues.
The two sides ultimately came to an agreement and enacted an emergency city budget that allowed city departments to provide necessary services. Weddle described the agreement with the council as a breakthrough moment.
In January, Weddle filed for reelection. He will go up against Tracie Handley — the former acting mayor who held the post this fall while Weddle was impeached for three weeks — and a third candidate, Matt Orr.
Meanwhile, Weddle’s administration is reportedly under criminal investigation by the FBI for misuse of federal criminal background check database. Plus, the city council has launched three of its own probes into Weddle and his associates for their alleged use of database, annual budget preparation and his administration’s handling of the investigation into a Laurel County man’s death at the hands of London Police Department officers in late 2024.
State Auditor Allison Bell is also conducting a special examination of the city’s spending since Weddle took office.
This story was originally published March 31, 2026 at 8:59 PM.
