A Kentucky circuit clerk should be removed from office after failing to report a sexual relationship with a female employee and retaliating against her when the affair ended, a hearing officer has recommended.
Pulaski Circuit Clerk Joseph “JS” Flynn also engaged in harassment at the office, pinching female court employees on the back below their bras and making statements such as “let Daddy feel your bacon,” Jean Chenault Logue, a former circuit judge appointed to hear evidence, said in her recommendation.
Logue said that even if it was considered a joke, “such sophomoric, degrading, disrespectful behavior” was a violation of court policy.
“Employees should not be subjected to this type of physical or verbal humiliation or harassment,” Logue in her findings.
The state Supreme Court will now decide whether to remove Flynn.
Flynn worked as a deputy in the circuit clerk’s office under his grandfather, George Flynn, who held the office nearly 30 years.
JS Flynn was appointed to the job when he grandfather resigned, then won a full six-year term in 2018.
He was suspended with pay in late March 2022 after complaints arose about his conduct. Circuit clerks’ salaries differ based on county population; Flynn’s annual pay was $113,003.
Circuit clerks in Kentucky run an office which is responsible for staffing courtrooms, receiving lawsuits, keeping records and scheduling juries. They are elected in each county but are under the purview of the Supreme Court.
Flynn acknowledged he acted badly in one incident in which he lost his temper and cursed at a court employee, but denied other allegations against him, including that he sexually assaulted a female employee in a vehicle as another deputy clerk drove.
His attorneys argued the evidence against him did not justify removing him from office, but Logue disagreed.
His attorneys were not immediately available for comment Monday afternoon.