When it comes to the letcher county sheriff, the prosecutor, and all judges; they are all elected officials, to me that is incentive enough to look past the bad behavior of other elected officials and their capacity because of the possible repercussions. They were voted in and the community loves them, why buck that even if they are right?! Justice in small towns becomes subjective and at best it might be lacking because the community itself is complicit. Just look at the South up until the 1930's... Where lynchings were common place. The only reason those things existed were because of a common hate and corruption and as much as a community might not agree, they allowed it to go on because the elected officials didn't do anything, rather, they were often party to offenses. Others would look the other way when things were otherwise corrupt, and to out right expect county officials to not have the possibility of being corrupt is otherwise unamerican and inexperienced, because it has existed for so long and is literally the bases of our checks and balances in our government.
The Judge sentenced Fields to 7 yrs -- the result suspending all but 6 months for supervised probation was part of a plea agreement.
kool.corrections.ky.gov
Former Letcher County Sheriff’s Deputy Ben Fields was sentenced to seven years in prison.
www.wymt.com
Jan 4, 2024
WHITESBURG, Ky. (WYMT) - Former Letcher County Sheriff’s Deputy Ben Fields was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Pike County Circuit Court Judge Eddy Coleman delivered the sentencing on Thursday.
ETA: More on sentence & additional allegations by Adkins at link below...
A former Letcher County deputy sheriff who pleaded guilty to raping a female prisoner who was on home incarceration will spend six months in the Letcher County Jail, where he formerly worked as a deputy jailer. Ben Fields, who was a court security officer for the sheriff ’s office and worked a...
www.themountaineagle.com
Right. Seven years of probation for the offences he had! Insane! Imagine if the women he victimized were given the same leniency in the first place?!?! They all pled as well, with the reasonable hope it would help them but it has been proven they are victims, and they might have never been victims to the county like they were in the first place if not for field's ability to commit his actions even if it were just one time! To assume it is limited to just two victims, with one being 1dead, is naive if not insane at the very least, in my opinion. Let alone the idea that a single deputy could commit all these offences without knowledge or help from some superior or other officer or other outside help. That's the real shame. That criminals were ever victimized in the first place. Because who is going to believe a criminal? Right? One victim might even be ALIVE if they were treated the way fields was as an offender in the first place. There might be a really messed up reason why they were never offered the same leniency as the deputy... Anyway, No matter how others might discredit or rake Adkins through the coals she at least has managed one thing above everyone else, probably the one thing used against most, is despite everything else, she has managed rehabilitation and change for the better. So for me, it's hard to discredit her.
When I look back at the mountain eagle and it's reporting it's is unnerving the amount of "absconding from bond" for a very large amount of young females who are tied to Fields and Stines. Who was the unwitting party? Seems like there was one.. it might likely be the one who lost his stuff and killed someone... Or it could've been the victim of the shooting, the judge, because he didn't play along? Or because the judge was the assumed victimizer? There are many possibilities than just passing the judge or the the sheriff as a bad guy.
But it's hard to believe one without the other.