First witnesses testify before special grand jury empanneled to investigate Whitley Sheriff’s office

A special called Whitley County Grand Jury, which is investigating allegations of criminal wrong doing by either current Whitley County Sheriff Lawrence Hodge or his department, held its first meeting Friday morning at the Whitley County Courthouse.

"This was the initial meeting of the grand jury," said Commonwealth’s Attorney Allen Trimble. "In the initial meeting, of course, they had some preliminary matters that they had to deal with, such as electing a foreman.

"We used it to help instruct them on what they were going to see, and to give them an idea of what they were looking into."
Chief Circuit Judge Paul Braden empanelled the special grand jury on June 25 pursuant to a petition Trimble filed on May 20.

Braden approved the petition on May 28 and set June 25 as the date for empanelling the grand jury.

Prosecutors called only three witnesses to testify before the grand jury Friday morning. Grand juries meet in secrecy outside the presence of the public.

The special grand jury began meeting about 9 a.m. Friday and adjourned for the day about 12:07 p.m.

The first witness called was McCreary County Sheriff Gus Skinner, who testified from 9:40 a.m. until 10:22 a.m.

Sgt. Rob Clark with the Lake Cumberland Area Drug Task Force was the second witness to testify. He entered the grand jury meeting room at 10:45 a.m. and left at 11:13 a.m.

The final witness to testify before the grand jury Friday was a Kentucky State Police Crime Lab technician, who testified from 11:32 a.m. until 12:01 p.m. The grand jury adjourned for the day six minutes later.

"None of them had any information about the subject matter of our investigation," Trimble said. "It is important that your grand jury understand what you are talking about.

"It is important that they be provided the information so that they kind of understand fundamentally the area that the investigation is about and how it functions."

Trimble said that he couldn’t go into the nature of the testimony before the grand jury, except to say that it was preliminary.

"To make decisions, you have to have something to compare it to. You have to understand what the law is and what the practice is," Trimble said.

"People, who are not involved in law enforcement, are not familiar with that necessarily. CSI and NCIS don’t really educate you that well on how police agencies actually work and the details of that. The people we had today helped us out with that.

"We tried to get witnesses, who we felt like were unrelated to our investigation but knowledgeable about procedures."

Trimble said previously that he couldn’t comment on whether the grand jury will look at allegations related to Hodge’s audits or the December break-in at his office.

"I can’t get into details of what we are looking at. I can say that various state and federal agencies are looking into it," Trimble said.

State Auditor Crit Luallen referred findings in audits of Hodge’s books to the FBI for further investigation.

The findings revealed several problems in the office that included alleged budget deficit’s totaling more than $200,000.

In December, Hodge’s courthouse office was broken into revealing that nearly 80 guns were either unaccounted for and stolen or that they had been returned to their owners but that proper paperwork hadn’t been filled out and kept on file. In addition other evidence was reportedly missing, such as drugs.

The Federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is investigating the break-in at Hodge’s office.

"Certain witnesses that would appear before the grand jury are federal officials or federal investigators. The Department of Justice is reluctant to institute any criminal proceedings during the course of an election. Some of the investigations were also not complete," Trimble said.

During the May 18 Primary Election, retired Kentucky State Police Detective Colan Harrell soundly defeated Hodge by a vote of 4,765 to 1,891 in a five-way race.

The special grand jury’s next meeting will be on July 30.

Trimble said he couldn’t say how many times that he anticipated the grand jury would meet, or when the grand jury would conclude its investigation.

He noted that the grand jury is empanelled for up to 90 days, but that prosecutors could ask for an extension.