Prosecutor candidate sues opponent for outdated claims on police endorsement

Campaign yard signs and Facebook posts are at the center of a legal battle between two candidates running to become the top prosecutor in Scott, Woodford and Bourbon counties.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Sharon Muse Johnson is being sued by her opponent in the Republican primary over outdated, now false, campaign signs and materials that claim she’s the “only” candidate endorsed by the fraternal order of police.

In fact, both candidates have been endorsed by different fraternal orders of police — Muse Johnson in Scott and Kelli Kearney in Woodford.

Muse Johnson secured the endorsement of the Royal Spring Fraternal Order of Police Lodge in Scott County in March, but more than a month later in mid-April Kearney scored the support of the Castle Fraternal Order of Police Lodge in Woodford.

The lodge in Bourbon, the third county in the 14th Judicial District, has voted to abstain from the endorsement process.

Keith Eardley, an assistant commonwealth attorney in the 13th District which includes Garrard and Jessamine counties, is also running in the Republican primary.

Kearney, an assistant county attorney in Scott County, asked a judge to bar Muse Johnson from continuing to make the claim and to order her to remove all materials referencing it in the run-up to the May 21 primary election. Kearney also seeks damages and attorney’s fees.

Jessamine Circuit Judge Hunter Daugherty, serving as a special judge, will conduct a hearing on Tuesday morning.

Muse Johnson has pointed out in the past that her campaign materials were produced after she got the Scott County endorsement, but before Kearney got the backing of Woodford County law enforcement. The timing, she wrote in a post to Facebook, makes it unrealistic for her campaign to take down the many signs her campaign has put up.

She noted that “40 days after the public announcement of my endorsement, another lodge endorsed an opponent.”

“My campaign material states ‘the only candidate endorsed by FOP’ because I was and have been since early March when all campaign material was ordered,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “The state FOP agrees that it would not be appropriate to change campaign material this late in the campaign nor would they ask me to. I have removed the word only from digital materials.”

Indeed, Kentucky State Fraternal Order of Police president Berl Perdue weighed in on the matter.

Perdue wrote in a late April letter that the Kentucky chapter “does not feel it is appropriate” to ask Muse Johnson to change her signs this late in the game given that they were true for more than a month.

However, Kearney argues in the motion that she’ll be “irreparably harmed” if Muse Johnson doesn’t take down all her signs and posts using the word “only” when referring to endorsements.

“Plaintiff will be irreparably harmed and will not have an adequate remedy at law unless and until an injunction is entered directing Defendant to immediately stop making false statements about the FOP’s endorsement and removing all false statements on signs and/or on social media and/or orally,” Kearney’s attorney, Luke Morgan of McBrayer, wrote.

Of note, Kearney recently scored the endorsement of Attorney General Russell Coleman. He called Kearney a “tough-but-fair prosecutor” in an endorsement message.

Coleman is the state’s top prosecutor. Commonwealth’s attorneys offices like Muse Johnson’s are overseen by Coleman’s office and the Prosecutor’s Advisory Council, which Coleman chairs.

Muse Johnson’s husband, Rob Johnson, served 12 years as a circuit judge and then later served two years on the state Court of Appeals. He also ran for circuit judge in 2022 in a race that made headlines, as Johnson would have been unable to hear criminal cases because of his wife’s position as prosecutor in the same court. He lost the race by about nine percentage points.

Attorneys for both Muse Johnson and Kearney did not comment on the record to the Herald-Leader.

Muse Johnson’s attorney mentioned that she would file a response Monday in the lead-up to a scheduled hearing on Tuesday.