Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman announced Tuesday that a grand jury indicted London Mayor Randall Weddle on four felony counts related to making excessive political contributions.
A Laurel County grand jury indicted Weddle on two counts of exceeding legal contribution limits to Gov. Andy Beshear’s 2023 reelection campaign and two counts of exceeding legal contribution limits to the Kentucky Democratic Party, according to Coleman’s press release.
The excessive contributions were first reported by the Kentucky Lantern in April 2023, which found that Beshear and the KDP had received more than $300,000 in contributions in the previous year and a half from individuals connected to Weddle and his businesses.
In the following months, the Beshear campaign refunded $12,000 of contributions and the KDP refunded $190,000 in contributions, after the Beshear campaign determined these funds were all donated on a credit card of Weddle and his wife — not the individuals under which the contributions had been originally given.
Under Kentucky law, individuals could at that time give $2,000 per election to a candidate and $5,000 to a state party per year.
Coleman briefly discussed the indictment at a press conference Tuesday afternoon, saying Weddle made “more than 20” illegal contributions to Beshear and the KDP in December 2020. He took no questions from the media, and his office did not provide a copy of the indictment.
The attorney general, a Republican, noted that his office doesn’t typically hold press conferences for indictments. He said he was doing so not because Weddle contributed to a candidate in an opposing party, but instead “to reassure the people of Laurel County and all the communities outside the Golden Triangle that law enforcement, prosecutors and public servants in every corner of this commonwealth are working long hours with a fire in the belly to protect you and to protect your families.”
Eric Hyers, the top political strategist for Beshear, said the campaign “proactively notified” the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance in 2023 in order to begin the refund process.
“We trust the justice system to determine if these were intentional campaign finance violations by the donor, but the campaign and the Kentucky Democratic Party did exactly what they should — report and refund the contributions," Hyers said.
This story has been updated.
