Several changes aimed at improving general public safety and policy changes at the Louisville Metro Police Department are underway ahead of the results of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and Louisville Metro Police Chief Erika Shields announced Saturday.In a Facebook Live community event, Fischer and Shields said there are changes to the Louisville Metro Police in recruitment, changes to training, accountability and use of body cameras, among others.Both Fischer and Shields said they wanted to be proactive about policy changes to ensure the department is heading in the right direction ahead of the expected report."It's really important to myself and the mayor that you understand that we are not waiting idly by to see what the DOJ may or may not present," Shields said. "We acknowledge we have a lot to do, but a lot of work has been done."Will it help?Louisville police get an early warning system to flag at-risk officersThe Department of Justice has been investigating LMPD since April 2021 after the killing of Breonna Taylor, which sparked national attention and protests. Fischer said among the things being reviewed are the use of force by officers in the police department, discriminatory policies and how officers execute warrants.Fischer said the 2020 protests led to big steps and more than 150 reforms implemented in the police department to improve public safety, including passing Breonna's Law, which banned no-knock warrants in the city. Changes were also made to the police department's leadership ― including the hiring of Shields ― after a third-party company conducted a review of the police department.Along with banning no-knock warrants, stricter measures have been implemented on other policies: search warrants now require more signoffs, the use of tear gas requires the permission of the police chief, and shooting at moving cars is prohibited, Fischer said.Breonna Taylor case updates:Louisville police chief moves to fire cop charged in Breonna Taylor case; another retiresAnother piece in Fischer's plan for changes involve American Rescue Plan funding currently being utilized for public safety initiatives outside the police department. Requests for help made to the city's 911 call center can now be directed to another department that can better assist with individual cases and reduce officer workload, Fischer said.Shields said the creation of Accountability and Improvement Bureau within the department now allows for officers to review how they are conducting themselves in the field instead of just measuring their performance through results.New positions have also been created in the police department, including an audit officer focused solely on reviewing body camera footage and a diversity and inclusion manager who reviews how officers treat colleagues and people of color in the community.Other changes implemented include:Changing the department's primary focus to stopping violent crimes.Involving residents in academy courses and hiring more staff to review what lessons are taught and how.Requiring more leadership training for high-ranking officers that focuses on accountability and use of force.Creating a new disciplinary model for employees and requiring mandatory drug testing following critical accidents.Developing a new system where body cameras activate when an officer's gun is drawn or a taser is activated.More:Former Louisville police officer quits Jewish Community of Louisville job after backlashShields said an improvement to the department will be more benefits for officers. The department is increasing officer salaries, she said, and providing mental health services for officers that have experienced traumatic incidents.The department is also permitting officers from other cities to transfer into the Louisville Metro Police Department and reducing the training they have to go through in the academy, Shields said.Reach Ana Rocío Álvarez Bríñez at [email protected]; follow her on Twitter at @SoyAnaAlvarez. 

A massive three-week trial in which two local ministries – one of them the well-known Evangel World Prayer Center – were accused of squandering a trust of an elderly multimillionaire with no family was settled Thursday. The terms were confidential and not disclosed, said Homer Parrent, an attorney for the court-appointed trustee, Kevin Ford. Parrent would not say if the settlement was triggered by testimony that favored one side or the other, or if the settlement was nominal or substantial. The Rev. Bob Rodgers, pastor for Evangel, which claims 9,000 members, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chris Roslan, a spokesman for the Rev. Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, which brought the suit, applauded the court trustee for pursuing it and said: "We pray that Ms. Hugh’s final wishes can now be honored.”Crime and courts:Rejecting leniency, federal judge sends designer to prison for stealing from elderly womanThe Courier Journal reported Aug. 29 that when Ruth H. Hugh, a Kentucky native, was near death in 2007 in the affluent San Diego community of La Jolla, two Louisville ministries, Evangel and High Adventure Ministries Inc., persuaded her to change the terms of her trust and misspent some of herfortune. The trustee alleged in the lawsuit that Rodgers flew to California to pray with Hugh on her death bed and persuaded her to be interred in an elaborate eight-person mausoleum worth about $250,000 that Evangel eventually built for her at its Crosswater Gardens Cemetery. The trustee alleged that defied the wishes she expressed in writing seven months earlier, when she said she wanted to be buried in nearby San Diego without even a funeral or service. CBN, which was to get 40% of Hugh’s trust, alleged in the lawsuit that the leader of High Adventure, Jacqeline Yockey, persuaded Hugh to change the terms of her estate to give less to CBN and 33% to the charity Yockey ran out of her Lake Forest home. CBN also alleged she took hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hugh’s trust and spent it on herself, including$3,190 for plastic surgery in Nashville, $4,935 at a Las Vegas beauty parlor and $1,079 for Broadway tickets to the Lion King, according to records filed in the suit. She also secretly transferred $400,300 to her son. Breonna Taylor case:LMPD cop hid info that Taylor's boyfriend was at apartment, had gun permit, government saysYockey had been trustee of Hugh's trust, but Jefferson Circuit Judge Charles Cunningham removed her at CBN’s request for misconduct. She is no longer president of High Adventure, according to testimony in the lawsuit. Attorneys for Rodgers and other defendants affiliated with its cemetery denied wrongdoing or liability. CBN also sought to recover money spent from the Hugh trust to provide first-class air fare and luxury hotels for the trip Rodgers and his son-in-law, Rex Nichols, took to visit her. Both were named as defendants. Attorneys for the church said in court papers that “it is not uncommon for people to feel a connection with pastors they watch on television, and that it is not unusual for such ministers to travel to pray with someone they have not personally met before.” Andrew Wolfson: 502-582-7189; [email protected]; Twitter: @adwolfson.

An interior designer whose clients once included rich and famous Kentuckians was sentenced to 21 months in prison Thursday for stealing over $285,000 from an elderly widow with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.Wayne Jenkins, 66, asked through counsel for probation or to do his time on home detention, citing a severe medical condition that was not disclosed in court.But U.S. District Judge David Hale said those would not be “just punishment.”“The fraud in this case cannot be minimized,” he said. “It played out over several years against a vulnerable victim.”Jenkins, who will be allowed to report to prison later, chose not to address the court.Breonna Taylor case:LMPD cop hid info that Taylor's boyfriend was at apartment, had gun permit, government saysMark Eliason, his former business and romantic partner – and the mother of victim June Eliason, who died in 2019 at age 95 − said in an interview the sentence was too lenient but he was glad the case is over.Demanding in court that Jenkins go to prison,  Assistant U.S. Attorney Corinne Keel said Jenkins' crime was “not merely a breach of fiduciary duty” but also an exploitation of a friendship” with both Eliason and his mother.”Addressing the court, Mark Eliason’s husband, Jeff Howard, said June Eliason, a nurse, had worked her whole life and Jenkins drained the legacy she had hoped to leave behind.“She was betrayed and she should not have had to end her life that way,” he said.Under advisory sentencing guidelines, Jenkins would have gotten 27 to 33 months behind bars, but Hale reduced that amount because of his medical condition.He also ordered Jenkins to pay $285,336 in restitution and to serve three years on supervised release after his  sentence expires.Data:Kentucky's youngest abortion patients were age 9 before ban took effectThe Courier Journal previously reported that Jenkins pleaded guilty in April to one count of bank fraud.The government charged that he used forgery, unauthorized online banking access and other methods to create the false impression that Eliason or his mother had authorized withdrawals, checks and payments from her accounts. In court papers, he was accused of forging her name to make online payments for his personal American Express card.  Keel said Jenkins used June Eliason’s money to maintain a lavish lifestyle that included spending on travel, dining, entertainment, vehicles and clothing.  In an interview, Eliason and Howard said Jenkins dined out nearly every night, threw parties for more than a hundred guests, drove a Jaguar, a Range Rover and a Mercedes at various times and sent out his sheets for dry cleaning.  The clients of Jenkins Eliason included Gov. John Y. Brown Jr., Yum Brands chief executive CEO David Novak and Ashland Oil Chairman John Hall – and their wives.Eliason and Jenkins parted ways personally about 15 years ago and professionally about four years ago, amid nasty allegations and counterclaims about bad checks and unpaid bills.Eliason depended on Jenkins to handle their bookkeeping and didn’t suspect anything was amiss until payment for his mother’s nursing home bounced, according to court papers. When he finally checked his mother’s accounts, he found they were practically empty, records show.“Mark rolled up in a ball and cried,” Howard said. “He wanted to die.Andrew Wolfson: 502-582-7189; [email protected]; Twitter: @adwolfson.

In a startling revelation about Breonna Taylor’s death, newly available records show that Detective Sgt. Kyle Meany, who surveilled her apartment just two days before she was fatally shot by police, saw her boyfriend Kenneth Walker’s car parked nearby and discovered he had a concealed carry permit. But even though that made the search far riskier, Meany never told that to the team of detectives who executed it, nor did he insist it be included in the application for the search warrant. He also never told fellow Detective Kelly Goodlett, who prosecutors say would have “thrown a fit” if she had known the information was withheld. The new information about the events leading to Taylor’s death in 2020 emerged in an addendum to Goodlett’s guilty plea filed Aug. 23 in which the government says it would have been important to share the information for “safety reasons, among other reasons.” Breonna Taylor case:Government demands defense keep some evidence secret in Breonna Taylor civil rights trialsBut Goodlett said Meany told her he did not find anything in the surveillance conducted on March 11, 2020. If the information that there was a “potentially-armed male at the Taylor residence” had been disclosed, it would have raised the “risk matrix” for the search, according to the supplement. “In short, Det. Goodlett knew from her training, experience, and the typical practices of the LMPD that there is really no circumstance under which the potential presence” of Walker at Taylor’s residence – and the fact he had the permit − “could justifiably have been withheld.” Taylor was shot and killed by police after Walker, believing the couple was being robbed, fired one shot from the apartment that struck Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg; Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove returned fire, killing Taylor. Justice Department lawyers also said in the plea supplement that if Meany had disclosed the sighting of Walker’s vehicle it would have undermined the claims that Taylor was involved in an “ongoing relationship” with drug dealer Jamarcus Glover, “which was a leading basis for searching Taylor’s apartment in the first place. “ It also “demonstrated a different, potentially longstanding relationship between Taylor and another man, who also had an association with her address, likewise undermining the basis to search Taylor’s Apartment,” says the addendum, which Goodlett signed. Goodlett is one of four Louisville Metro officers who Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Aug. 24 had been indicted for violating Taylor’s civil rights. Garland said if not for those violations, Taylor would be alive today. Goodlett, who resigned from the department, has agreed to testify against former Detective Joshua Jaynes and Meany. Former Detective Brett Hankison is charged in a separate indictment with violating the civil rights of Taylor, Walker and three neighbors by firing blindly through closed shades into her department. Breonna Taylor case updates:Experts predict who has the edge, the feds or the charged officersIn another new disclosure in the augmented plea, prosecutors say when Jaynes and Goodlett met in his garage to “get on the same page” after news reports suggested they had falsified the affidavit for the search, he told her “if he went down ... so to speak ... she would go down too.” The pleading said Jaynes “kept pressuring Det. Goodlett to go along with his false story, and she eventually buckled and agreed to repeat it to others.” Meany's lawyers, Brian Butler and Michael Denbow, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Goodlett, who resigned from LMPD, is to be sentenced Nov. 22. She faces up to five years in prison for conspiring to falsify the warrant. The six-page plea document sets out in detail the now familiar story about how Jaynes, Goodlett and Meany swore in an affidavit that a postal inspector had verified Taylor was receiving packages at her apartment and how records show he lived there. 'My whole life changed': Breonna Taylor's boyfriend still haunted by night she diedFederal prosecutors say they knew that both assertions were false. The pleading says Meany surveilled Taylor’s apartment on March 11, 2020, to try to find “fresh information” to add to the affidavit but reported he did not find anything. It says Goodlett did not know that when Meany was conducting surveillance that day, he saw Walker’s car parked near Taylor’s apartment and saw a “workup” showing Walker had the gun permit and a relationship with Taylor. The next day, according to the pleading, Goodlett and Jaynes applied to Judge Mary Shaw for five warrants, including the one to search Taylor’s home on Springfield Drive, selecting Shaw because Jaynes had suggested she would not “closely scrutinize” them. Shaw has previously defended her practices of examining warrant applications. Jaynes is charged with deprivation of rights, conspiracy and falsification of records in an FBI investigation. Meany is charged with deprivation of rights and giving a false statement to federal investigators.  Hankison is charged in a separate indictment with violating the rights of Taylor, Walker and three neighbors by firing blindly into her apartment. Goodlett pleaded guilty to conspiracy and faces up to five years in prison when she is sentenced Nov. 22. 'One more hole in our hearts':Breonna Taylor protesters mourn death of leader Chris WellsAccording to the supplement to Goodlett’s plea, Jaynes requested a no-knock warrant for Taylor’s apartment because "these drug traffickers have a history of attempting to destroy evidence" and have cameras. But the pleading says the detective “had absolutely no reason to believe that Taylor was a drug trafficker, or that she had ever tried to destroy evidence or flee from law enforcement.” The document also says Goodlett falsely stated Jaynes had "verified" from law enforcement databases that Glover used Taylor's apartment as "his current home address.” Both detectives knew this was "misleading" because he did not live there and hadn't been seen at the apartment since January, the plea says. Andrew Wolfson: 502-582-7189; [email protected]; Twitter: @adwolfson.