PROSECUTOR FACES SEX ACCUSATIONS

Hardin Defendant Taped Encounter, Her Lawyer Says

ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. - A Hardin County prosecutor was suspended
yesterday and is under investigation by the state attorney general's
office over allegations that he had sex with a defendant who had
agreed to testify in a drug case. Erica L. French's lawyer, Kenneth
Daniels, said they had a camera installed in her bedroom closet last
week and taped her having sex with Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney
Robert W. Stevens.

Daniels said they decided to record her encounter because French, 29,
had complained that Stevens had made inappropriate advances toward her
during talks involving her cooperation with the prosecution of other
defendants. According to Daniels, French said that Stevens told her
that if she would have sex with him he would use his influence to
withdraw her guilty plea and drop charges prior to her sentencing.

On Monday, Daniels told the Kentucky Bar Association, the attorney
general's office and the county's three circuit judges about the tape,
he said yesterday. He has not turned over copies of the tape, although
he has shown portions of it to a reporter at his Elizabethtown office.
Stevens did not respond to telephone messages left late yesterday
afternoon. Daniels met with French yesterday evening and said she
would not agree to an interview. Hardin Circuit Judge Thomas Steven
Bland said the judges met yesterday morning and suspended Stevens'
access to the courthouse. Stevens' supervisor, Commonwealth's Attorney
Christopher G. Shaw, said that he met with Stevens yesterday morning
as he arrived at the courthouse and told him that he was suspended
pending the investigation. Shaw said he learned of the tape Monday
night from an assistant in his office. Shaw declined to say what
Stevens told him during their meeting, citing the investigation by the
attorney general's office, but he said that he learned enough at the
meeting to convince him that Stevens should be suspended. "I did gain
enough information that I felt I needed to put him on leave," Shaw
said. Stevens is married with two children, Shaw said.

Vicki Glass, spokeswoman for Attorney General Greg Stumbo, said that
at Shaw's request a special prosecutor would be named to respond to
the allegations. The Kentucky State Police would help in the
investigation, she said. Shaw said French is scheduled to be sentenced
June 8 following a plea bargain that she accepted March 15 and that
was approved April 8. Shaw said the plea agreement called for her to
plead guilty to five drug charges involving marijuana and possession
of some of the ingredients needed to make methamphetamine, and to
serve a sentence of five years' probation. French was offered the plea
bargain in part because she has no criminal history, Shaw said.

The agreement also required her to provide information for prosecutors
handling the case against co-defendants Billie Joe Strader and Earl
Wieman, he said. Stevens was the prosecutor in charge of that case,
Shaw said. Daniels said he likely will ask Circuit Judge Janet P.
Coleman to set aside the plea agreement and to dismiss the charges
against French because of the "taint" on the case.

Shaw said that although the investigation may turn up other
information, he is aware of nothing that suggests French's guilty plea
or the charges against the other defendants have been tainted by the
allegations against Stevens. "That may be what the defense counsel
wishes will happen, and it may be what Ms. French wants to happen, but
I don't think there's anything to suggest that that is what will
happen," Shaw said.

"When something like this happens, it affects the trust the public has
in this office, and in the court system," Shaw said. "I can only hope
that the public won't let this affect their feelings about this
office, or about members of the staff here."

Shaw said that a prosecutor other than Stevens negotiated French's
plea agreement and that Stevens came in contact with her only after
she had entered the plea and agreed to cooperate in the prosecution of
Strader and Wieman. Daniels said that French has told him, but offered
no proof, that Stevens made contact in the weeks prior to her plea
agreement's being approved. The 51/2-hour tape was made last Wednesday
beginning about 9 a.m., after Stevens had told French he needed to
come to her house to watch videos pertinent to the prosecution of
Strader and Wieman, Daniels said. Daniels said he talked to Stevens
about the tape on Thursday and Friday. He said Stevens offered to use
his influence to have the charges against French dropped if Daniels
kept the tape secret.

Daniels said he thought about the situation over the weekend and
decided he had no choice but to report what he knew to the court and
to the bar association.

Daniels said he advised French not to have sex with Stevens, telling
her that even if all he did was proposition her or touch her, that
would be evidence of wrongdoing on his part.

"It surprised me quite a bit, but I treat adults as adults," Daniels
said. "I had advised her against having sex."

Bland, one of the three judges who learned of the allegations against
Stevens on Monday, said it's too early to tell what impact the charges
will have on cases on his or other judges' calendars.

"My understanding is that this has been reported to the Kentucky Bar
Association and the attorney general's office, and they will both
conduct investigations into the matter. As far as what ramifications
this will have on the court, it would depend on what actually is
determined to have occurred." Michele Pogrotsky, director of
accounting and membership for the bar association, said Stevens'
record includes no instances of public discipline. Stevens was
admitted to the bar in October 1995, she said. Shaw said he believes
appropriate policies are in place limiting contact between defendants
and prosecutors, but a certain amount of trust is required "short of
the county providing funds to hire a detective to follow each one of
my employees around."

Stevens began his work as a prosecutor in the commonwealth's
attorney's office on Jan. 2, 2001, Shaw said. Before that he was in
private practice and had been a clerk to Hardin Circuit judges for
several months prior to Shaw's election as commonwealth's attorney in
2000.

Yesterday's news of Stevens' placement on administrative leave left
members of the office in shock, he said.

"There has been sadness mostly," Shaw said. "Frustration and
embarrassment for the office, of course, but mostly people have felt
sadness for somebody they had worked with and for somebody they did
care about."