London Mayor Indicted on Felonies for Secretly Bankrolling Beshear’s Campaign
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman announced four Class D felony charges Tuesday against London Mayor Randall Weddle, accusing him of funneling excessive campaign donations totaling $305,500+ to Gov. Andy Beshear and the Kentucky Democratic Party during Beshear’s 2023 reelection.
London mayor faces 4 felony charges for donations to KY Gov. Beshear, state Democrats
by Tom Loftus, Kentucky Lantern
March 31, 2026
A Laurel County Grand Jury has indicted London Mayor Randall Weddle on four felony counts, alleging he made excessive campaign contributions to the 2023 campaign of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and the Kentucky Democratic Party.
The indictments were returned Tuesday afternoon and announced in a brief news release by Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, whose office led the investigation.
Each of the counts is a Class D felony.
The charges are the first stemming from a story published in April 2023 by the Kentucky Lantern that revealed the unusual nature of massive bundles of contributions from Weddle’s family, employees, friends and associates — totaling at least $305,500, perhaps much more — to help Beshear win reelection in 2023.
Coleman has scheduled a news conference later Tuesday to provide further information about the case.
The Lantern’s story in April of 2023 outlined not only the large amount of money listed as donations by the Beshear campaign committee and Kentucky Democratic Party (KDP), but other unusual aspects of the contributions such as the fact that most of the donations were in large amounts but none of the listed donors had ever before made a large political contribution.
Beshear and his campaign manager Eric Hyers declined to be interviewed for the Lantern story.
At a news conference days after the story was published Beshear avoided directly answering a question about the unusual contributions. “We’ve had support from Democrats and Republicans, thousands and thousands and thousands of people from across Kentucky and across the United States. But all of those had been voluntary …” Beshear said.
But shortly after that news conference, Weddle has said, he reported a problem to Beshear: Much of the money attributed in disclosure reports as contributions from his family and friends had actually been donated on his personal credit card. Weddle contended this had been inadvertent and done because Beshear’s chief fundraiser, Lucas Johnson, had indicated it was okay to advance campaign contributions of other people in such a manner.
But under Kentucky law it is illegal to give a campaign donation in the name of another person, or even to advance a contribution of another person and later be reimbursed by that person. Intentional violations of the law are Class D felonies punishable by jail sentence of up to five years and a fine of $10,000.
After hearing Weddle’s story attorneys for Beshear’s campaign and the Kentucky Democratic Party told the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance about the matter. The campaign and party refunded to Weddle $202,000 — the amount of excess donations he had made on his credit card.
Because he was then running for governor against Beshear, Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron said state ethics laws prohibited him from launching an investigation of his opponent. Cameron referred the matter to the FBI, which has declined to say whether or not it is investigating the contributions.
Soon after Beshear beat Cameron in the general election, the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance began an investigation. The registry has the authority to impose fines of up to $5,000 per violation of campaign finance laws, but if the registry determines that a violation is intentional it can refer the case to the attorney general for possible criminal violation.
The investigation nearly came to an end in February of 2025 when the registry staff recommended a finding that Weddle’s many violations of the law were unintentional and that he be fined $5,000 per violation. But registry board members complained the staff investigation still left many important questions unanswered. Board members — Democrats and Republicans alike — did not want to surrender the option of referring the matter for criminal prosecution and voted 6-0 to continue the investigation.
The Lantern obtained records of the registry investigation through the Kentucky Open Records Act and it had found that —despite his early insistence that he had nothing to do with the Beshear contributions — Weddle orchestrated all of the contributions.
The records included 86 text messages between Weddle and Beshear fundraiser Lucas Johnson between Dec. 27 and Dec. 31 of 2022 in which the pair scrambled to gather contributions before a deadline of midnight Dec. 31. Johnson suggests names to Weddle of Weddle’s family and business associates who gave big exactly one year before. Weddle transmitted contributions to the portals of Beshear political committees. Johnson confirmed the contributions had been delivered.
At the end of the exchange on the night of Dec. 30, 2022 Weddle texted, “I have got you $219K this week.”
Johnson replied, “Yessir you have! …Thank you so much. I’ve let the man know.”
This story will be updated.
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.
Each felony carries up to 5 years in jail and $10K fines. Coleman will detail the case at a Tuesday news conference. Beshear’s campaign did not immediately comment.
