Glenna Bevin and her estranged adopted son Jonah took the stand Tuesday as a Jefferson County judge decides whether former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin and his ex-wife owe their now 19-year-old son child support. The one-term governor himself was noticeably absent, as he continues to evade an active warrant for his arrest.
Jefferson Family Court Judge Angela Johnson had ordered that all parties to the case appear in person for the hearing, but Matt Bevin instead chose to attempt to call in via videoconference. Johnson did not allow him to do so, but allowed his attorney to question witnesses, including Glenna and Jonah.
Bevin’s attorney did not explain his absence in court or to reporters after the hearing, while Jonah’s attorney called him a “fugitive” in court.
Bevin still has an active bench warrant for contempt of court, which Johnson issued in June for his refusal to turn over required financial records. He previously defied an order to appear in person for a hearing, saying he could not attend due to a boulder crashing into his Maine vacation home.
Jonah Bevin is intervening in his parents’ divorce case, seeking financial support due to alleged abuse and abandonment while he was a child in their care. Jonah’s parents sent him to an abusive Jamaican facility that was shut down while he was there. Jonah alleges they abandoned him in the country.
Over several rounds of testimony and cross-examination, Glenna and Jonah told their sides of a complicated history of Jonah’s institutionalizations and a series of abuse allegations.
Much of the testimony dealt with Jonah’s stay at the Atlantis Leadership Academy in Jamaica — including the Bevins’ decision to send him there, the abuse Jonah says he endured and the Bevins’ actions after it was shut down by government authorities.
Jonah said he witnessed and personally suffered brutal beatings within days of arriving at the boarding school for "troubled teens," while receiving no education, healthcare or mental health services. He also said he was previously abused at Master’s Ranch, another youth facility in Missouri.
Jonah described trying to escape from the Jamaica facility on his third day there when multiple staff members caught up to him on the beach and beat him.
“I was bleeding from my nose and my mouth, and then they kept hitting. They grabbed the chair and hit me with the chair. That's when I completely lost consciousness on the ground,” Jonah said.
Jonah Bevin and Dawn Post, a children’s rights activist who traveled to Jamaica to help him, testified that the Bevins made little effort to help retrieve him after he was turned over to state custody there. Post provided the audio of her call with Glenna after she connected with Jonah. In it, Glenna hoped he could be transferred to a Florida facility he previously attended, but suggested it would be difficult to reach Matt Bevin and allow that to happen.
Despite hearing about the alleged abuse, Post testified the Bevins later tried to place Jonah back at the Atlantis facility instead of transferring him to Florida. They also shared an attorney with the shut-down facility instead of hiring an attorney for Jonah, she testified.
Glenna noted during her testimony that she feared for the safety of her children due to violence and threats of violence from Jonah throughout his childhood. She also referenced his arrest as a minor for assaulting Matt Bevin, for which Jonah went into a diversion program.
Glenna said she was frantically trying to reach Jamaican and embassy authorities once she learned that the facility was shut down, but did not want to bring Jonah back into her home due to safety concerns for her family. She said she was disturbed to hear of his abuse at Atlantis when she first was able to contact Jonah in a phone call, but suggested that she thought at the time he may have been making it up because of something another boy said at the end of the call.
“We were led to believe that the allegations were false, and the phone call didn't help me any, and so I didn't know what to believe,” Glenna said. “I would never put my son in a place that was not safe if I knew it.”
She said she heard conflicting information from the facility itself and couldn’t get more information from the embassy. In cross-examination, Glenna said she could not travel to Jamaica due to a lapsed passport, but acknowledged she did not attempt to renew it either over the months Jonah waited there.
Jonah Bevin seeks retroactive child support
After the hearing, Jonah said his mother’s testimony “made me sound really awful,” but he was glad to get his day in court to tell his story.
“That's the only thing that really matters in this case,” Jonah said. “I already shared my story. There's a bunch of other people that've been abused, they can relate to it.”
Jonah said he was not surprised that his father did not attend the hearing. Jonah himself arrived late to the hearing after an overnight weather-related travel delay, but he made it to the hearing in time to testify and hear his adoptive mother’s statements as well.
“I mean, it's Matt Bevin,” Jonah said. “It's not shocking to any of us. It's something that he does.”
Jonah’s request for retroactive child support as an adult is highly unusual. One of his lawyers Melina Hettiaratchi said after the hearing that asking after he became an adult was the only way for Jonah to make the ask, as he couldn’t intervene in his parent’s court case before he turned 18.
“The fact that they couldn't bring it while they were a minor shouldn't preclude them when their parents left them out in the cold,” Hettiaratchi said. “They can't then use that as a defense, or we should continue leaving them out in the cold. And for kids like Jonah — a lot of those kids — they end up with additional needs after the fact.”
Johnson ordered each party to submit memos with their final points and findings within 21 days of a recording of the hearing becoming available. After that, she will make her finding of whether Jonah is entitled to back-child support and could determine how much he’s owed as well.
After the hearing, Post said Jonah has a lot of visibility on his case because of who his parents are, but other children faced the same abuse and neglect, including at Atlantis.
“This would be a very visible form of accountability to say to other adoptive parents, you can't just warehouse kids and leave them in abusive situations,” Post said.
