‘I'm a real person': Ex-governor's adopted son makes case for intervening in parents' divorce
Jonah Bevin, adoptive son of former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin and Glenna Bevin, speaks to attorney Dawn Post, left, in court in Louisville, March 21, 2025. (Photo by Michael Clevenger, Courier Journal, via press pool)
LOUISVILLE — In advance of a hearing Monday afternoon over Jonah Bevin's effort to intervene in the divorce case of his adoptive parents, former Gov. Matt Bevin and his ex-wife Glenna, a flurry of motions offers sharply different claims about Jonah's care.
The recent filings even raise questions about Jonah's age — whether he is 18, as he had believed, or just 17, because of a conflict in records that recently came to light.
Matt Bevin, in filing Friday, said Jonah's claims of neglect, abandonment and abuse 'are not grounded in fact or law and are, instead, intended to garner media attention and outrage.'
'The truth is entirely different and it is heartbreaking to Matt to see his son caught up in this web,' it said, adding that 'Jonah is deeply loved by his entire family' and cites Matt Bevin's 'unshakable love and commitment for his son.'
Glenna Bevin, in a separate filing, said she is 'very sad' about the contentious legal proceedings, adding 'she loves her son Jonah and wants only the best for him.'
Both Matt and Glenna Bevin are subject to protective orders barring them from contact with Jonah, who sought the orders last month in Jefferson Family Court, alleging they attempted to send him on a hastily arranged trip to Ethiopia, supposedly to meet his birth mother, whom he believed was deceased.
Dawn J. Post, a child advocate and lawyer representing Jonah, said she has not been able to find any evidence Jonah's birth mother is alive.
Jonah, in a filing Monday, restates his allegations he was abandoned by the Bevins in Jamaica after child welfare authorities closed the Atlantis Youth Academy for abuse and neglect, removing residents and leaving him for a time in the custody of the Jamaican child welfare system.
'Where is the love my parents said they had for me because they didn't show it when they left and ignored me. Other parents came to get their kids,' he said in an affidavit. 'My parents either lied or left out the truth over and over. Because of that I've been on my own. I've been trying to speak up because nobody else has done it for me.'
Jefferson Family Court Judge Angela Johnson has scheduled a hearing Monday afternoon to decide whether to permit Jonah to intervene in the Bevins' divorce case in order to prevent them from reaching a confidential settlement. The Courier Journal also is objecting to keeping such a settlement private, saying court records generally are open to the public.
Meanwhile, Jonah has reported to the court his exact age is in dispute; recently obtained records show he may be only 17 instead of 18, as he previously believed.
'I feel that I am not real,' Jonah said in his affidavit. 'No one knows my real age.'
A motion filed Friday by his lawyers says Jonah, who was one of four children adopted by the Bevins in 2012 from Ethiopia, said records the Bevins recently provided show conflicting birth dates.
One of the records the Bevins provided shows Jonah's birth date as November 2006, which Jonah had thought was his true birth date, and the other, November 2007, the motion said.
If Jonah is just 17, and still a minor, that could affect his pending case, said one of Jonah's lawyers, John Helmers Jr.
Prior to the recent filings, court records have said the Bevins' five biological children are adults and that only one of the four adopted children is a minor.
It makes Jonah's case for intervening in the Bevins' divorce stronger since the court has a greater responsibility toward minor children, Helmers said in an email.
Matt Bevin's motion objecting to Jonah intervening in the divorce case dismissed the issue, saying that it was 'undisputed' the teen turned 18 in November 2024 and therefore is 'emancipated.'
He and Glenna Bevin both ask, in separate motions, that Jonah's request to intervene as a party in their divorce case be denied.
Jonah, in his affidavit, disagrees, saying his alleged abuse, neglect and abandonment deserve consideration.
'The court can't just let this go on like it didn't happen,' it said. 'I'm not just a name on paper. I'm a real person. What happened to me was real. Leaving me out of this case says it didn't happen.'
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Ship captain convicted of poaching lobsters, crabs and mussels
A Vietnamese national and captain of a 400-foot cargo ship docked in Newington was arrested last week by Fish and Game officers after receiving a tip about illegal lobster trapping. Bui Cong Doai, 44, pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors for lobster and crab fishing without a license and illegal possession of someone else's lobster gear, as well as five other violations. He had a Vietnamese passport and United States visa, according to Conservation Officer Justin Whipple. In all, he paid $1,269 as part of the conviction. Mussels Bui Cong Doai, 44, pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors for lobster and crab fishing without a license and illegal possession of someone else's lobster gear, as well as five other violations. The cargo ship, Franbo Lohas, which sails under the Panama flag, had been docked on the Piscataqua River in Newington. Fish and Game noticed multiple ropes extending from the ship with traps belonging to a licensed New Hampshire commercial fisherman. 'There were four lines total off of the ship, two large and two small,' Whipple said. 'The two large each had a trap they were actively using to fish.' Officers found lobsters, crabs and bags of blue mussels. A female egg-bearing lobster was found in an undersized cage just to keep it alive. The investigation started after Whipple received a tip from a local lobsterman who had his gear tangled in lines coming from the cargo ship. 'When he retrieved his gear, he pulled up what was clearly an illegal lobster pot,' he said. 'He took some photos, gave me a call and reported it.' Fish and Game needed to get permission from the Coast Guard and the pier operator SubCom to board the ship. Based on information provided to Fish and Game, this is the first time the ship docked in New Hampshire. Bui Cong Doai, 44, pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors for lobster and crab fishing without a license and illegal possession of someone else's lobster gear, as well as five other violations. 'We had probable cause based on the photos to do the investigation with the blessing of the Coast Guard,' Whipple said. 'We wanted to do it quickly because we weren't sure when the ship would be leaving.' The violations include illegal trap construction, possession of a short egg-bearing lobster, unlawful possession of crabs, unlawful possession of blue mussels and an egg-bearing Jonah crab. Fish and Game was able to work with the courts for an expedited arraignment, which led to the conviction. The egg-bearing lobster likely had never been caught before because it did not have a 'v-notch' marking, which fishermen use to mark breeding lobster. 'Hopefully, it will encourage people to keep giving us calls if they see anything skeptical and know that we are willing to get out there and do the investigation and the legwork,' Whipple said. He's glad the case was able to be settled before the ship left port.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Southern Baptists voted on a resolution to overturn same-sex marriage. A Louisvillian wrote it
First, Denny Burk and the resolution committee used a verse from Genesis, then another, then one from Ephesians, Psalms and Deuteronomy. The professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College, a Christian college off Louisville's Lexington Road affiliated with the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, used the verses to write a resolution on "restoring moral clarity through God's design for gender, marriage and family." "Whereas, legal rulings like Obergefell v. Hodges and policies that deny the biological reality of male and female are legal fictions, undermine the truth of God's design, and lead to social confusion and injustice," a line of the resolution stated. The resolution was part of a focus by the Southern Baptist Convention, which has long had a fixation on opposing LGBTQ+ rights, and also abortion before the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Burk, a strong traditionalist voice within the Southern Baptist Convention, proposed the language in the resolution. Burk is also the president of the Louisville-based Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, an advocacy group that opposes LGBTQ+ rights. On Tuesday, during its annual meeting in Dallas, the Southern Baptist Convention voted on a resolution to reverse Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage. Southern Baptist delegates, known as "messengers," overwhelmingly approved the measure following little debate on the resolution's language. Andrew Walker, an ethicist at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary off Lexington Road in Crescent Hill, chaired that resolution committee. "What we're trying to do is keep the conversation alive," Walker told The New York Times. Burk told USA TODAY he was grateful the SBC had taken up his call to overturn Obergefell. "We know that we are in the minority on this issue, but we want to be a prophetic minority," Burk said. "We don't mind being countercultural when it comes to marriage. We want to bear faithful witness to God's good design — that marriage is the conjugal union of one man and one woman." The Courier Journal requested an interview with Walker but received a message that Walker was on sabbatical, writing a book. The follow-up contact did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Courier Journal also requested an interview with Burk, who is also on sabbatical until July 31. The Courier Journal also requested an interview with Albert Mohler, the president of the seminary and a prominent evangelical leader. Mohler did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Stephanie Kuzydym is an enterprise and investigative reporter. Reach her at skuzydym@ or on social media @stephkuzy. Liam Adams, who covers religion as part of the USA TODAY Network, contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Southern Baptist repeal same-sex marriage based in Louisville
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Trump's Deportation Numbers, Explained
A Jamaican man is detained by federal agents after his immigration court hearing at the Ted Weiss Federal Building in New York City on on June 9, 2025. Credit - Adam Gray—Getty Images President Donald Trump campaigned on delivering the largest mass deportation effort in US history. What he has delivered so far is a dramatic surge in arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement of people who were living in the U.S. The data shows that interior enforcement has more than doubled since Trump took office, filling up immigration detention facilities across the country. It's those stepped-up efforts by ICE agents in workplaces, courthouses and homes to arrest people that prompted protests in Los Angeles last week. Trump's decision to deploy the California National Guard there over the objections of state and local officials sparked an escalation in protests and violent clashes with law enforcement over the weekend, according to local officials. Trump's upswing in ICE arrests may be starting to yield a surge in deportations. The total number of deportations has stayed essentially level compared to the Biden era, until recently, when the numbers appear to have risen sharply. Here's what the data shows about how the Trump Administration has revamped immigration enforcement and deportations in a few short months. In Trump's first six months, the number of people being apprehended on the Southern Border has plummeted. Instead, an increasing share of those held in immigration detention are people who were arrested by ICE. The most recent ICE detention data shows the average number of people held has gone up 25% since Trump took office. This represents a dramatic shift from how immigration enforcement has long been conducted in the U.S. Under the Biden administration, the majority of people who ended up in immigration detention were those who had recently crossed the border and were arrested by agents with Customs and Border Patrol (CPB). Holding border crossers in detention put them on a faster docket in removal proceedings, paving the way to send them out of the country at a faster clip. One major reason for this shift away from CPB arrests is that fewer people are coming to the border illegally than they were during most of the Biden era. Read more: Inside Donald Trump's Mass Deportation Operation In a recent interview with TIME, Trump border czar Tom Homan said he would like to double the amount of bed space ICE has in detention from 50,000 to 100,000. Having more people held in detention centers could increase the pace of both ICE arrests and deportations. Trump told TIME last year he wanted to target 15 million people for removal. He said he was open to using the military to do it, in the face of restrictions in the Posse Comitatus Act that limits the use of the military on U.S. soil. In a campaign interview with ABC News in August, J.D. Vance said, 'Let's start with 1 million.' At the end of April, the Administration said it had deported more than 139,000 migrants, which was behind pace to reach their aggressive targets. That is a reflection of just how time-consuming and challenging it is to find and remove people living in communities. On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security provided TIME with updated figures from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin: more than 207,000 deported. That represents a significant increase in the Administration's deportations and may reflect the more sweeping and intrusive actions immigration officials have taken in recent weeks. The total number of people being deported has basically been stable, if slightly up, even as an increasing portion are those arrested inside the US by ICE. In May, ICE increased the pace of removal fights, a sign that the number of deportations could increase at a faster rate in the coming months. The Trump administration has asked Congress for more funding to pay for deportations and an increased pace in immigration enforcement. The most recent version of the'Big Beautiful Bill' that Trump is pushing Congress to pass has $168 billion for immigration and border enforcement. That would be a five-fold increase in such funding over the current year, which Congress set at $33 billion. Part of the challenge is finding places to accept deportees. Trump has defied long-standing norms and, some argue, broken laws by sending migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador and the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, while putting others on planes bound for Panama and South Sudan. Homan tells TIME the Administration is in talks with three more countries to accept U.S. deportees. With the number of deportations not increasing as fast as they would like, Trump officials are pressuring ICE and other government agencies to boost immigration arrests. They are also encouraging migrants in the U.S. to return to their home countries on their own. Trump has offered $1,000 and a free commercial flight to people willing to 'self deport.' But even with that incentive, immigrants aren't leaving the country at the pace Trump promised. Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, says the Administration's self-deport campaign is unprecedented. 'Once they realized that fast deportation is not an easy enterprise, they started selling the idea of self deportation at a scale of which probably has not been detected in our history,' he says. Contact us at letters@
