An email Friday from former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin’s personal account to various media outlets, blasts lawyers for his estranged son, Jonah Bevin, for making “FALSE STATEMENTS” to the media and accuses Jonah of trying “TO SHAKE HIS PARENTS DOWN FOR MONEY.”
The two-page email, mostly in capital letters, repeats attacks on Jefferson Family Court Judge Angela Johnson, who oversees the case in which Jonah, 19, seeks support from his divorced parents. It calls her an “ACTIVIST JUDGE” who “INSISTS ON MILKING THIS CASE PUBLICLY FOR THE MEDIA ATTENTION THAT IT BRINGS HER.”
Jonah, 19, is one of four children the Bevins, who divorced last year, adopted from Ethiopia in 2012. Jonah, who alleges he was abandoned by the Bevins at age 17 in an abusive facility in Jamaica, is seeking support and help in completing an education.
The email statement comes as Matt Bevin faces arrest and a 60-day jail sentence for contempt of court for failing to meet several deadlines for financial disclosure. The warrant has not yet been served, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department and Bevin recently told the judge he failed to appear in person as ordered at a hearing because he was at his home in Maine dealing with damage from a “very large” boulder that crashed into it.
The email statement is not signed by Bevin and the sender did not reply to multiple requests from the Kentucky Lantern for confirmation that the email was from him or respond to questions about its content.
Bevin’s lawyer, Jesse Mudd, said in an emailed statement that the email address is Matt Bevin’s but he had no advance knowledge about the statement and other emails related to the case sent Friday.
Jonah’s lawyers declined to comment.
A series of separate emails from the same account sent to the Kentucky Lantern contain a series of photos of Jonah, sometimes portrayed with Matt Bevin, in various locations—such as a fishing pier, beach or riverfront. The statement says they were taken in 2024 and show he was not experiencing abuse.
Jonah alleges he was sent in December 2023 at age 17 to a brutally abusive facility in Jamaica and abandoned by his parents after it was shut down by child welfare authorities a few months after his arrival. He returned to the United States in May 2024.
The email statement from the Matt Bevin account also says Jonah was a troubled and sometimes violent youth, who was charged in juvenile court after an alleged altercation with his parents, and also had been expelled from a previous school for threatening another student and assaulting staff.
Jonah has acknowledged at a previous court hearing a physical altercation with his father that ended in his being charged in juvenile court before he was sent to Jamaica at 17.
In a recent statement provided by his lawyers, Jonah said he had been “very open and public about my experience growing up in harmful and abusive environments.”
The photos provided in the emails depict a smiling Jonah, sometimes with Matt Bevin, one with his arm around his father, in relaxed poses.
Another depicts Jonah getting a haircut which the statement from Matt Bevin’s email account said was taken “less than a week before the school was shut down on unproven allegations of abuse.”
Jonah was among eight U.S. youths removed from the Atlantis Leadership Academy in February 2024 after an investigation by authorities with the Jamaican Child Protection and Family Services Agency found “signs of abuse and neglect,” according to a press release from the agency.
Jonah and other youths removed from the facility have since alleged in various court cases brutal treatment including regular beatings, lack of medical care, little to no education and food deprivation.
Friday’s email statement from Bevin’s account questioned the abuse allegations and said Jonah was placed there after no other facility in the United States would accept him following his expulsion from a previous facility.
It also disputed claims the Bevins abandoned Jonah in Jamaica, who spent two months in the Jamaican foster care system before he returned to another placement in the United States in May 2024.
Dawn J. Post, a New York lawyer and child advocate who spent several weeks in Jamaica working on behalf of the youths removed from Atlantis, said in a sworn statement in the current court case that the Bevins were the only parents who did not immediately “engage” with officials trying to arrange the youths’ return to the United States and as a result, Jonah ended up in Jamaican foster care until his return could be worked out with various authorities.
The email statement from the Bevin account disputed that.
“MATT BEVIN HANDLED ALL THE COORDINATION WITH THE US EMBASSY AND THE JAMAICAN AUTHORITIES AND PAID FOR 100 PERCENT OF THE ASSOCIATED COSTS TO FLY JONAH BACK TO THE US,” it said.
“JONAH WAS NEVER ABANDONED IN JAMAICA OR ANYWHERE ELSE,” it said.
Jonah’s lawyers, John Helmers Jr. and Melina Hettiaratchi, disputed such claims in a previous email statement:
“Regardless of the spin the Bevin family may try to put on the current situation, the following facts cannot be disputed:
- Jonah was abandoned in Jamaica by his parents.
- The facility in Jamaica, to which the Bevins consented, was shut down by the child welfare authorities; but not until Jonah suffered trauma while there.
- Matt and Glenna refused to pick him up at the request of the local authorities and the United States Embassy. He languished in foster care in another country until rescued by advocates with the assistance of the United States State Department.”
The case is scheduled for a hearing in Jefferson Family Court July 28.
