By Deborah Yetter
Kentucky Lantern
The Kentucky Court of Appeals has rejected efforts by former Gov. Matt Bevin and his ex-wife, Glenna Bevin, to block their estranged son, Jonah Bevin, from intervening in the court case where their divorce agreement is pending.
The Bevins had appealed a judge’s ruling in May that Jonah may intervene in their divorce settlement proceedings but an appeals court panel on Monday dismissed their claim as having been filed too soon.
The appeal may only be filed after the pending case in Jefferson Family Court is resolved, the appeals court said.
The decision means Jonah, 18, who was adopted by the Bevins at age 5 along with three other children from Ethiopia, may proceed with his claims in family court, said John Helmers Jr., one of his lawyers.
“We’re pleased that we’re going to have our day in court,” he said.
Jesse Mudd, Matt Bevin’s lawyer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mark Dobbins, Glenna Bevins lawyer, declined to comment.
Jefferson Family Court Judge Angela Johnson also had rejected the Bevins’ efforts to keep their divorce settlement confidential, an order which was not appealed and remains in force, Helmers said.
Jonah has alleged his adoptive parents abandoned him at age 17 in a brutally abusive and now-closed Jamaican facility. He is seeking support and the right to protect his interests in any financial settlement by his wealthy adoptive parents as part of their divorce.
Conditions at Atlantis Leadership Academy, first reported last year in the Sunday Times of London, attracted international headlines after celebrity hotel heiress Paris Hilton flew to Jamaica in April to aid the youths as part of her advocacy work to reform what she calls the “troubled teen” industry that she says also victimized her. Jonah was among eight youths removed from the facility.
Dawn J. Post, a New York lawyer and child advocate who helped relocate Jonah and several other youths from the former Atlantis Leadership Academy after it was closed by Jamaican child welfare authorities in 2024, said she was pleased by the appeals court ruling.
“However, we are deeply surprised and disappointed by how long it took to reach even this procedural step,” Post said in an email. “This case represents more than a legal delay; it reflects the ongoing failures of accountability that have defined the experience of too many abandoned adoptees, from adoptive parents to public agencies, that continues to cause profound harm, not just to one young man, but to many others like him who were and are left without support, oversight, or belonging.”
Even now, Post said, more than 160 youths remain housed in a different facility in Jamaica with little oversight and in the midst of a major hurricane that struck the island Tuesday.
Jonah’s case had been “on hold” while the appeal was pending but Jonah is asking the judge to schedule a hearing now that the appeals court has ruled, his lawyers said in a court filing.
The Bevins have five biological children as well as four adoptees; all are adults except the youngest adopted child. Bevin, a conservative Christian and one-term Republican governor elected in 2015, ran on a campaign of promoting adoption and foster care, often citing his own family’s experience.
But Jonah, who has said he suffers from significant learning disabilities, has told the Kentucky Lantern he was mistreated by the Bevins and was sent to several out-of-state residential programs, starting at age 13. The last was the Jamaican facility where he said he and other youths were routinely beaten and abused.
For a time, he was placed in the custody of Jamaican child welfare authorities after the Bevins declined to arrange his return to the United States, his lawyers have alleged in court.
His lawyers also have argued he is entitled to educational support for help with learning disabilities and efforts to obtain a valid high school degree. Jonah has said he received no education at the Jamaican facility and his lawyers have said his online degree from an unaccredited program is a “sham.”
Post said she remains concerned about Jonah and the many other youths she has worked with from failed adoptions, often winding up in loosely regulated facilities.
“Jonah has been working to find his footing amid years of abandonment and instability,” she said in an email. “Each delay in the legal process makes that work harder. The absence of timely accountability sends a painful message.”
Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.