LEXINGTON (KY)
Herald Leader
March 22, 2019
By John Cheves and Daniel Desrochers
As attorney general and as a gubernatorial candidate this year, one of Democrat Andy Beshear’s biggest issues has been protecting Kentucky children, particularly from sexual predators. Beshear frequently touts his record of hammering on pedophiles and child-porn offenders.
“Whether it’s been years or whether it’s just been days, let us seek justice for you,” Beshear said as he proposed legislation last year to allow him to convene a statewide grand jury to investigate sexual abuse of children in the Catholic church. “That’s how we stop this activity from occurring again and make sure we try to build the type of commonwealth where no child and no person is ever harmed.”
But Beshear sang a different tune six years earlier in Paducah.
Then, as a lawyer in the firm of Stites & Harbison, Beshear successfully defended the Boy Scouts of America from two lawsuits filed by men who said they were sexually molested by their scoutmaster when they were minors in the 1970s. The men — with some evidence, including a 1979 letter — said Scout officials knew at the time of their scoutmaster’s predatory behavior but failed to stop it.
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