WQXE News

The Radcliff City Council discussed zoning and police personnel during a work session Monday.

Radcliff Planning Official Murray Wanner discussed an annexation and several zoning change requests that were recently approved by the city’s Planning Commission. The annexation request is for about 12.5 acres located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Ernest R. Kouma Boulevard and Patriot Parkway, and developers are asking for that property to be rezoned from R-1 Residential to Commercial Zone to match neighboring properties.

Zoning changes for properties located 1276 and 1278 Hill Street to R-6 High-Density Multi-Family Residential, and for a property at 3491 South Wilson Road to R-4 were discussed. City Attorney Michael Pike said developers are responding to demand.

“Everyone’s telling us we need more housing,” Pike said.” The employers are telling us we need more housing, the realtors and brokers are telling us we need more housing. We don’t have enough inventory. Interest rates are higher than they’ve been for years.”

Radcliff Police Chief Jeff Cross discussed a proposal to remove the department’s evidence custodian position and replace it with two contract officers hired as detectives that would be in charge of the department’s evidence room. Cross said hiring detectives for the positions would keep the evidence room in check while also making additional personnel available for investigations.

“Those detectives work long hours,” Cross said. “It takes a lot to do what they do, and the first 72 hours of that are the most important. We had one (case) where the suspect had to go to the hospital and we had to sit on that person for a couple of days, and so we were having officers having to come in and call people in to cover the streets because they were having to help do that, so the more manpower we’ve got in that detective section the better it would be for them to investigate those crimes that take up a lot of time.”

Cross said money is in the budget for the positions for the current fiscal year, but he is requesting an additional $50,500 for the next city budget. Mayor J.J. Duvall said the city would look into its options.

The Radcliff City Council will next meet January 16.

A LaRue County couple will serve two years and nine months in prison on federal drug charges.

Court records state that Ashley Ramsey-Wilmoth and Stephen T. Wilmoth were each sentenced for conspiring to steal hydrocodone and oxycodone from a pharmacy to sell. Following their prison terms, the two will serve three years of supervised release, and will pay $2,500 in fines and about $18,700 in restitution.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky says Ashley Ramsey-Wilmoth was an employee of Century Medicines, and took unopened bottles of oxycodone and hydrocodone from the retail pharmacy and provided the drugs to her husband, Stephen Wilmoth, to sell and distribute. The case was investigated by the DEA, the Kentucky State Police, and the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services Office of the Inspector General.

Meanwhile, former Bullitt County Master Commissioner John Anthony Schmidt was sentenced to two years and 11 months in prison after he defrauded two trusts originally held by senior beneficiaries.

The charges stem from a case in which Schmidt stole over $435,000 while serving as the court-appointed trustee for two trusts, paying for his own personal expenditures including to pay debts related to his legal practice and the Bullitt County Master Commissioner’s bank account.

In addition to paying restitution, Schmidt will serve three years of supervised release and 100 hours of community service following his release from prison.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office says there is no parole in the federal system.

Two suspects charged in the Crystal Rogers investigation made court appearances last week.

Steven Lawson faces charges of Conspiracy to Commit Murder and Tampering with Physical Evidence following his arrest in December. Lawson appeared in the Nelson County Circuit Court for a pre-trial conference and bond reduction hearing.

Lawson’s lawyer Ted Lavit said his client has consistently been cooperative with officials conducting the Rogers investigation, and said that an agreement had been made that Lawson would not be prosecuted. Lavit said that Lawson has proven he is not a flight risk with his cooperation with the investigation and has never made efforts to evade law enforcement. Lavit later said Lawson had been working in Winchester, Indiana, and then visited his mother in Harrison County the day he was arrested.

Lavit asked for Lawson’s bond to be reduced from a $500,000 cash bond to either a $20,000 cash bond or a $40,000 real estate bond. Lavit said Lawson does not have the financial resources to meet either, but those bonds are more obtainable for him than $500,000.

Special Prosecutor Shane Young said that Lawson was charged based on the decision of the grand jury to indict him when presented with evidence in the case. Young said he did agree that Lawson wasn’t necessarily a flight risk, but said a $500,000 bond fits the seriousness of the charges.

Nelson Circuit Court Judge Charles Simms III said he would make a decision on the bond reduction sometime within five days.

Meanwhile, Joseph Lawson, who faces charges of Conspiracy to Commit Murder and Tampering with Physical Evidence, appeared in the Nelson Circuit Court via Zoom Friday from the Kentucky State Reformatory in La Grange.

The court was to consider a motion filed by the defense to reduce Lawson’s bond from $500,000 to $50,000 and to transfer Lawson to home detention with GPS monitoring, but Lawson’s attorney Kevin Coleman asked for that motion to be moved to a later date so that Lawson could attend the hearing in person.

Lawson’s next court date was set for February 8. Special prosecutor Shane Young said most of the discovery in the case should be processed and made available to defense by that time so a trial date should be able to be set.

February 8 is also the date of the next court appearance for Brooks Houck, who is charged with Murder and Tampering with Physical Evidence in the Rogers investigation. Court orders were filed Friday for Lawson to be transferred from the Kentucky State Reformatory and Houck from the Oldham County Detention Center to the Nelson Circuit Court that day.