Through an order entered into Christian County Circuit Court Tuesday and signed by special judge Brian Wiggins, former First United Methodist Church pastor Paige Williams has had her conviction of eight counts of criminal abuse in the third degree vacated with prejudice.
In layman’s terms: it’s over, and this case cannot be brought up against Williams again.
Court documents went on to say that the Office of the Attorney General moved for discretionary review by the Kentucky Supreme Court — which was denied by the state’s highest authority on March 12.
On August 16, 2024, the Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed the March 2023 decision against Williams based on the 1998 Davis v. Commonwealth and 2014 Staples v. Commonwealth cases, in which it believed actual custody “must necessarily include the direct care of the direct control of a child by a defendant,” and that in Williams’ matter, “the uncontroverted evidence indicates that Williams never exercised direct care or control over the children.” Williams, it continued, “did not work within the confines of the daycare, and was not involved in the caretaking aspect of the of the children on a daily basis.”
Therefore, and as a matter of law, Williams “did not have actual custody of the abused children within the meaning” of state statutes.
Tuesday’s resolution brings to end a two-year battle for Williams and her family, who through litigation had contended that the Christian County Circuit Court had erred in denying her a motion for directed verdict of acquittal, because she never had that “actual custody.”
She also reaffirmed she never observed any abusive conduct, and was not a supervisor of former daycare director Abby Leach — who was also convicted in this case.
Earlier this year, Attorney General Russell Coleman did announce that the Kentucky Supreme Court upheld the sentences of two Hopkinsville women convicted of abusing infants at the First United Methodist Church Daycare in 2018. Allison Simpson was sentenced to 20 years in prison and Nina Morgan was sentenced to one year in the Christian County Jail in 2022.
