Campaign signs and Facebook posts are at the center of a legal battle between two candidates vying to become the top prosecutor in Scott, Woodford and Bourbon counties.
Commonwealth Attorney Sharon Muse Johnson is being sued by her Republican primary opponent over allegations that outdated, now-fake campaign signs and materials claim she is the “only” candidate endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police.
In fact, both candidates were endorsed by different fraternal orders of police: Muse Johnson in Scott and Kelli Kearney in Woodford.
Muse Johnson gained endorsement from the Royal Fraternal Order of Police Lodge of Scott County in March, but more than a month later, in mid-April, Kearney gained support from the Fraternal Order from Woodford Police Lodge Castle.
The lodge in Bourbon, the third county in the 14th Judicial District, voted to abstain from participating in the approval process.
Keith Eardley, an assistant commonwealth’s attorney in the 13th District that includes Garrard and Jessamine counties, is also running in the Republican primary.
Kearney, Scott County’s deputy district attorney, asked a judge to prohibit Muse Johnson from continuing to make the claim and to order him to remove all materials referencing it as the May 21 primary election approaches. Kearney is also seeking damages and attorney’s fees.
Jessamine Circuit Judge Hunter Daugherty, as special judge, will hold a hearing Tuesday morning.
Muse Johnson has pointed out in the past that his campaign materials were produced after he got the endorsement from Scott County, but before Kearney got the support of Woodford County law enforcement. The timing, she wrote in a Facebook post, makes it unrealistic for her campaign to remove the many signs her campaign displays.
She noted that “40 days after publicly announcing my support, another lodge supported an opponent.”
“My campaign materials say ‘the only candidate supported by the FOP’ because I was and have been since early March when all campaign materials were ordered,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “The state FOP agrees that it would not be appropriate to change campaign materials this late in the campaign, nor would they ask me to do so. I removed the word only from digital documents.
Indeed, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police of the State of Kentucky, Berl Perdue, has spoken out on the issue.
Perdue wrote in a letter in late April that the Kentucky Section “does not feel it appropriate” to ask Muse Johnson to change his signs this late in the game given that they had been true for more than a month.
However, Kearney argues in the motion that she will suffer “irreparable harm” if Muse Johnson does not remove all of her signs and messages using the word “only” when referring to endorsements.
“Plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm and will not have an adequate legal remedy unless and until an injunction is issued ordering Defendant to immediately cease making false statements…
