‘Sex scandal’ investigated as possible motive for judge’s murder, allegedly by sheriff pal: cops

The shocking murder of a Kentucky judge allegedly by his sheriff pal is being investigated as a possible sex scandal, cops said Sunday.

Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Micky” Stines was decades-long friends with Judge Kevin Mullins and even had lunch with him on Sept. 19 — hours before he’s accused of walking into the judge’s courtroom and shooting him eight times.

Surveillance video from inside the chambers showed the men switching cellphones and looking at something on them — before the sheriff walked over and shot dead the sheriff, sources told the Mountain Eagle.

“Our investigators seized the two cell phones and they’re being analyzed,” Kentucky State Police Trooper Matt Gayheart told the Daily Mail on Sunday.

Asked if the investigation was also considering a possible sex scandal as a motive, the trooper confirmed: “Absolutely. We are not ruling out anything as a possible motive.”

Gayheart did not elaborate on the sex scandal in question. However, the sheriff had days been deposed in a lawsuit filed by two women, one of whom alleged that a deputy forced her to have sex inside Mullins’ chambers for six months in exchange for staying out of jail.

The lawsuit accuses the sheriff of “deliberate indifference in failing to adequately train and supervise” the deputy, Ben Fields, who pleaded guilty to raping the female prisoner while she was on home incarceration.

Fields was sentenced this year to six months in jail and then six and a half years on probation for rape, sodomy, perjury and tampering with a prisoner monitoring device, The Mountain Eagle reported. Three charges related to a second woman were dismissed because she is now dead.

Stines fired Fields, who succeeded him as Mullins’ bailiff, for “conduct unbecoming” after the lawsuit was filed in 2022, The Courier Journal reported at the time.

Stines and Mullins had been friends for 20 years before the murder. Stines had served as Mullins’ bailiff before becoming sheriff in 2018.

“I never knew of there being any kind of friction between them till it came to this. We all got along good, teased each other,” Letcher Circuit Clerk Mike Watts told the local newspaper, The Mountain Eagle. 

Mullins and Stines even worked together on drug addiction and recovery projects that provided resources and education in a region wracked by the opioid epidemic.

The sheriff reportedly came out of the courtroom with his hands up after the shooting. However, he pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

With Post wires