LOUISVILLE, Ky. — An arrest warrant was issued Friday for former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin after a Jefferson Circuit Court judge denied his emergency request for more time to turn over financial records in an ongoing family court case.
Judge Angela Johnson’s order directs all Kentucky peace officers to arrest Bevin and bring him before the court to serve 60 days in the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections and pay a $500 fine.
The warrant followed the denial of Bevin’s emergency motion, which was filed shortly before the noon deadline he was given to produce the documents. Johnson stated that Bevin had multiple opportunities to comply and had “already been granted more than reasonable time” to comply.
According to Johnson, Bevin’s motion was filed too late, arriving “minutes before” the noon deadline, even though Bevin had been aware of it from May 29.
“Matt, as the perpetrator of civil contempt, holds the keys to his own jail cell,” Johnson wrote in the order. “By consistently refusing to comply with Orders that he produce documents after having multiple chances to comply, he has locked the door behind himself.”
The developments mark the latest escalation in a case involving Bevin, his former wife, Glenna Bevin, and their adopted son, Jonah Bevin, who intervened in the divorce case.
An emergency motion was filed by Bevin’s attorneys preceding the arrest order, requesting Judge Johnson to grant him until the end of the business day on June 15 to adhere to the June 1 command. They also wanted the court to stop the order from being enforced until that point.
In the filing, Bevin’s attorney, Jesse Mudd, said their client had been given less than four days — 91 hours — to produce documents identified as outstanding by Jonah Bevin’s attorneys. They argued the requests were “irrelevant,” “vague,” “ambiguous,” “excessive,” “invasive,” “harassing,” “overly broad” and “unduly burdensome.”
Mudd said Bevin produced hundreds of pages of financial records Friday before filing the motion, bringing his total document production to “well over one thousand pages,” with more records still to be produced. They said additional tax-related records had been received Thursday evening and needed heavy redaction before being turned over.
The filing also argued Jonah Bevin’s attorneys had not served formal discovery requests in the case, even though the court had said Jonah should be allowed to conduct “meaningful discovery.” The attorneys for Bevin indicated that the court’s request for supplementary records was limited to Matt Bevin, even though Glenna Bevin is also involved in the proceedings and could potentially access the same financial papers.
Johnson rejected those arguments in her order denying the emergency motion. She wrote that the court told the parties in May 2025 that they would have to exchange financial records. In February, Johnson wrote, Matt and Glenna Bevin were instructed three separate times by the court and the Kentucky Court of Appeals to exchange those records. In March, they were given another opportunity to comply under a short deadline, and the case was effectively paused for two months while Matt Bevin sought to remove the matter from Johnson’s court.
Johnson said Bevin was then given a final chance at his May 29 sentencing date to comply within one week. To address concerns that the requests were too vague, she ordered Jonah Bevin’s attorneys to provide a specific list of documents that had not yet been turned over. That list was provided on June 1, according to the order.
Bevin’s attorneys have framed the dispute as one involving an adult child seeking retroactive child support. In Friday’s motion, they wrote that “no one should lose sight of the fact that all of this is for a child support claim brought by an adult child that has no legal basis in Kentucky or otherwise.”
In a written statement provided by his attorney, Bevin said he and Glenna Bevin love their son Jonah and want him “to become the man God created him to be. That has never waivered from the moment he was adopted by our family when he was five years old.”
Bevin also criticized Johnson, saying he thought the case had shifted from questions about retroactive child support to “finding some way to put me in jail.” He said he and Glenna Bevin had tried to keep the case private for Jonah’s sake but said the judge and Jonah’s attorneys had forced private family issues into public court proceedings.
“When this case is finally resolved, his family will still be right here, where we have been from the start; always available and willing to help Jonah do what is legally and personally right in his life,” Bevin said.
Friday’s arrest warrant is the second warrant issued for Bevin in the case. He was previously found in contempt on March 23 after failing to comply with earlier discovery orders. The Kentucky Court of Appeals later ordered Johnson to recall that arrest warrant.