By JUSTIN STORY

justin.story@bgdailynews.com

Three former Warren County Juvenile Detention Center officers accused of having a hand in introducing contraband into the facility have criminal cases pending amid a federal investigation into conditions at the state’s juvenile centers.

Brandon Grubbs, Terrence Lightfoot and Jose Soto are all under indictment in Warren Circuit Court on charges of first-degree official misconduct.

Lightfoot is also charged with first-degree promoting contraband, while Grubbs and Soto face alternate charges of first-degree promoting contraband or first-degree promoting contraband by complicity.

Grubbs is accused of conspiring with his two codefendants and three other people to bring forbidden material into the juvenile center between Nov. 19 and Dec. 21, namely a cellphone.

Lightfoot is also charged with introducing a forbidden cellphone into the facility on Nov. 19, while Soto is accused of bringing in or alternately conspiring with others to bring in a number of THC vapes on Dec. 3.

The three men have pleaded not guilty to all counts and have a pretrial conference scheduled before Warren Circuit Judge Chris Cohron on Dec. 16.

A grand jury returned the criminal charges against the three men in April following a Kentucky State Police investigation.

A month after the indictments, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the opening of an investigation into the conditions at eight youth detention centers and a youth development center operated by the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice.

The justice department said that the investigation would examine whether children held in those facilities were protected from harm caused by excessive force from staff, prolonged and punitive isolation and inadequate protection from violence and sexual abuse, as well as whether the state provides adequate mental health services and required special education and related services to children with disabilities.

“Confinement in the juvenile justice system should help children avoid future contact with law enforcement and mature into law-abiding, productive members of society. Too often, juvenile justice facilities break our children, exposing them to dangerous and traumatic conditions,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a press release. “We are launching this investigation to ensure that children in Kentucky youth detention facilities are safe from harm, receive adequate mental health care and get appropriate special education services. All children held in the custody of the state deserve safe and humane conditions that can bring about true rehabilitation and reform.”

Reporting by the Lexington Herald-Leader over the past several months, relying on records obtained from the Department of Juvenile Justice through open records requests, exposed a reported smuggling operation at the Warren County facility in which phones, chargers, THC vapes and other contraband were passed among the youths, allegedly with the help of employees who brought in the forbidden items.

In addition to the criminal charges against the three former officers, the investigation resulted in the firing of two other Warren County Juvenile Detention Center officers and the suspension of another officer.

At an October hearing in Warren Circuit Court, attorney Renae Tuck of the Department of Public Advocacy indicated that Grubbs, who she had been appointed to represent in the contraband case, indicated to her that he may hire attorney Gary Logsdon to represent him.

Logsdon already represents Grubbs in a Butler County case in which he is charged with attempted murder of a police officer, second-degree assault of an officer and other charges based on a May 24 incident in which he is accused of choking a Morgantown Police Department officer responding to a call regarding an intoxicated man.

Reached this week, Logsdon said he had not formally entered his appearance in the Warren County case, and that he is working on resolving the criminal case in Butler County against Grubbs.

“We’ve had an evaluation performed and discovered some interesting and salient facts with regard to Mr. Grubbs and his situation,” Logsdon said.

Asked whether he had been contacted by authorities about the federal civil rights investigation into the youth detention facilities, Logsdon said no one had made contact with him, “but I expect they will.”

Soto’s attorney, Matt Baker, said that he has not been contacted with regard to the DOJ investigation, and that there has been no offer from the Warren County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office to resolve the case against Soto.

Another incident at the facility uncovered by the Herald-Leader’s series of stories was a June 12 encounter in which an asthmatic boy was pepper-sprayed twice in the face and left in his cell, triggering an hourlong asthmatic attack, an incident that resulted in the suspension of the officer who used the spray and the firing of a second officer and a contract nurse.

The Herald-Leader also reported about the firing or resignation of three employees and the suspension of three others at the facility following an April 26 incident in which a juvenile center employee repeatedly remotely flushed the toilet in an isolation cell in which a mentally ill boy was being kept, with officers telling the boy he would be punished with more time in isolation if he continued to flush the toilet.

One of the fired officers was a shift commander who, instead of interceding, submitted an anonymous complaint about the incident because she did not think the officers respected her authority enough to stop on her orders.

Facility manger Kevin Foster was demoted in August to youth service program supervisor.