‘Broken trust.’ Former Kentucky county official pleads guilty to felony, misdemeanor

A former Kentucky county official has pleaded guilty to two criminal charges, according to Attorney General Russell Coleman.

Shanna Oliver, who resigned as county clerk in Owsley County on March 31, pleaded guilty Friday to one charge of misuse of confidential information, a Class D felony punishable by up to five years in prison, and one charge of second-degree official misconduct, a misdemeanor.

The plea deal bars Oliver from ever running for the clerk’s job or working in the office, Coleman said in a news release.

“Owsley County voters hired their County Clerk to do a job, and she has broken the public trust,” Coleman said in the release.

Detectives from the Attorney General’s Office investigated the case.

The indictment in the case charged that Oliver refused to deliver public records from her office to the Kentucky Department of Vehicle Regulation, and that she failed to do her duty by not sending paperwork on the purchase of a trailer to the department.

Oliver admitted that over a period of about two years, she didn’t submit over 500 applications for vehicle titles to the state, meaning the owners did not receive their titles, according to the release from Coleman.

Oliver’s attorney, Thomas P. Jones of Beattyville, said that if Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate approves when Oliver is sentenced in May, she would be placed on unsupervised probation.

Jones noted that some of the titles Oliver was charged with not sending to the state were on property she and family members owned.

He also stressed that there was no money missing from Oliver’s office.

Oliver, 41, worked as a deputy under the prior Owsley County clerk, Sid Gabbard, who resigned in June 2013 and entered a plea on charges of filing false tax returns and abuse of public trust.

A judge probated Gabbard’s eight-year sentence as part of an agreement for him to pay delinquent taxes and $61,118 in restitution.

Oliver was appointed to replace Gabbard and had held the office since.

She has faced several critical audits, including one released in 2020 that said she hadn’t completed required reports, hadn’t prepared some tax bills on time and hadn’t properly reconciled the office bank account.

Another audit released in 2019 said Oliver hadn’t prepared franchise tax bills on time, which meant local agencies including the school system, the library and the health department didn’t receive tax revenue on time.

County clerks are elected in Kentucky. Their duties include vehicle licensing, preparing tax bills and conducting elections.

Coleman said Owsley County Judge Executive Zeke Little Jr. appointed Austin Bowling to replace Oliver.