Beshear campaign demands TV stations pull ‘materially false’ commutation attack ad
Attorneys for the re-election campaign of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear are demanding Louisville and Lexington television stations pull a new “materially false” ad attacking the incumbent for a 2020 commutation order during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The video — paid for by the School Freedom Fund political action committee, which has endorsed GOP challenger Daniel Cameron — originally claimed Beshear commuted the sentence of James Hamlin, a Covington man who was facing criminal charges in early 2020 for sodomy and incest.
“James Hamlin sodomized a young child, only six years old,” the ad narrator says. “He was arrested and thrown behind bars where he belongs until Andy Beshear turned him loose, released back into the community with a year. What Kentucky child is safe when their governor lets monsters like Hamlin roam free? When Beshear puts deviant predators before innocent kids, it’s not just wrong; it’s unforgivable.”
In actually, Hamlin was never freed from behind bars.
In a letter to station managers and provided to the Herald-Leader by the Beshear campaign, attorney Jon S. Berkon wrote the “crux — that Governor Beshear released Hamlin back into the community after only a year — is false.”
“The entire premise of this ad is based on a falsehood; it should be removed from your station immediately,” Berkon wrote.
Hamlin did appear on an April 10, 2020, commutation of sentence executive order signed by Beshear. However, the offense that placed Hamlin on that list was not for sodomy, but a 2018 case of intimidating a witness in a legal process, a Class D felony.
The commutations on that list were for the sentences of “697 inmates who are currently serving sentences for non-violent, non-sexual offenses set to expire on or before September 30, 2020.”
Court records also show that between his late 2018 indictment and early 2020 sentence in the witness intimidation case, Hamlin was charged in a 2019 case for first-degree sodomy involving a victim under 12 years of age and incest. According to his arrest citation by the Covington Police Department, Hamlin was arrested May 30, 2019, for “a rape of a 6 year old.”
Department of Corrections documents included with Berkon’s letter show Hamlin was received in corrections custody on January 27, 2020 for the earlier Class D felony offense, and remained in custody until July 1, 2020, at which point he was returned to the Kenton County Detention Center. That same day, Hamlin appeared in Kenton Circuit Court, at which point he pleaded guilty to the sodomy and incest charges from the 2019 indictment, according to the final judgment document in court records.
On Sept. 17, 2020, Hamlin was sentenced to 25 years in prison each on the rape and incest charges, with the sentences to be served concurrently. According to the Kentucky Online Offender Lookup, Hamlin is currently housed at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex and expected to be in prison until October 2044, with parole eligibility in October 2039.
Morgan Hall, communications director for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, confirmed the timeline laid out in Berkon’s letter to station managers.
“He was initially serving a sentence for the crime of Intimidating a Participant in a Legal Process when he was eligible for a pandemic commutation in April 2020 for only this conviction. But, prior to his conviction for Intimidating a Participant in a Legal Process, Hamlin was indicted in 2019 for other crimes in Kenton County,” Hall said. “In July 2020, the Department of Corrections gave custody of Hamlin to the Kenton County Detention Center based on those pending 2019 charges. He thus stayed in the same jail and was convicted of those 2019 charges in September 2020 and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
“Hamlin remained in custody the entire time and was never released to the public.”
The School Freedom Fund did not respond to questions emailed by the Herald-Leader Tuesday evening.
The ad challenged by the Beshear campaign does not publicly appear on the School Freedom Fund website, but is posted to AdImpact, which tracsk political advertisements.
The PAC, which is affiliated with the Club For Growth, has promoted a re-cut version of the Hamlin ad online with a significant change to the script.
After the ad introduces Hamlin like in the first ad, it instead now says he “was arrested and thrown behind bars where he belongs, yet Andy Beshear signed an order intended to release Hamlin from jail.”
The Beshear campaign, however, maintains that the re-cut ad is still untrue as the commutation order was not for the criminal case at the center of the School Freedom Fund ad.
The School Freedom Fund has released several ads going after Beshear, including on his COVID-19 commutations.
