Weddle request to move his case to Franklin County is denied

Laurel Circuit Judge Michael Caperton has denied former London Mayor Randall Weddle’s motion to move his case – that alleges excess campaign contributions to help Gov. Andy Beshear win reelection in 2023 – from Laurel County to Franklin County.

The order, issued on Oct. 15, is the first significant pre-trial order in the case since Weddle was indicted by a Laurel County grand jury on March 31 on four counts of violating the state law that limits the amount a person can give to a political committee.

At the time, the law limited that amount to $2,000 per election to a candidate for state office and $15,000 per year to a political party.

The indictment charges that Weddle shattered those limits by giving $18,000 to Beshear’s campaign, and $130,000 to the Kentucky Democratic Party in the names of his family members, friends and employees in a series of credit card transactions made during the final days of 2022.

Each of the four counts is a Class D felony  which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Weddle has pleaded not guilty.

Weddle’s attorney, Guthrie True of Frankfort, argued in a motion filed in April, and at a hearing in London in July, that the trial should be moved to Franklin County. True argued none of the alleged illegal behavior occurred in Laurel County. He said that the contributions were solicited from Franklin County and accepted in Franklin County, and that they were made by Weddle when he was on a family vacation in the Bahamas.

The case is being prosecuted by the office of Attorney General Russell Coleman, which argued that Laurel is a proper venue because Weddle’s credit card has a Laurel County address and that the actions of Weddle, which occurred just days before he assumed the office of mayor, “had a greater effect on the citizens of Laurel County than the citizens of any other county.”

CourtNet, the website for Kentucky court records, lists that Caperton issued the order on Oct. 15, but the order itself is not accessible on CourtNet.

True did not return phone calls from the Kentucky Lantern. A spokesman for Coleman’s office declined comment.

The Lantern first raised questions about the Weddle contributions in an April, 2023 story. The story said that reports filed by Beshear and the Kentucky Democratic Party listed contributions totaling at least $305,500 from Weddle family members, employees and friends. It further identified another $385,162 in other contributions to Beshear and the party from Weddle business associates from across the country.

Beshear initially defended the contributions. But when Weddle later told Beshear that many of the contributions were made on his credit card, the Beshear campaign and the KDP refunded $202,000 in contributions to Weddle.

The Kentucky Registry of Election Finance launched an investigation of the matter, but the registry later stepped aside when Coleman began investigating the matter.

In documents filed by Weddle during the registry’s investigation and in the ongoing criminal case, True has said that a series of more than 80 text messages between Weddle and Beshear’s chief fundraiser, James Lucas Johnson, in late 2022 show that the fundraiser initially gave Weddle the green light for initially putting campaign contributions of others on his own credit card.

Weddle’s tumultuous term as mayor ended prematurely in July when he resigned after the Kentucky Court of Appeals reaffirmed the city council’s decision in 2025 to remove him from office for reasons that include the mayor’s signing of a $5 million mortgage for the city without council’s approval.