EKB News

A federal appeals court has dismissed the conviction and indictment of former state Sen. John Doug Hays, D-Pikeville, on mail-fraud charges in a 2002 judicial race. The 62 year old Hays and his wife and campaign treasurer, 50 year old Brenda Hays, were both convicted of mail fraud in 2004 and sentenced to six months and three months in prison, respectively. They were acquitted on vote-fraud charges. While they were free on appeal, however, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Aug. 31 decided in a separate but related case that the government cannot use the federal mail-fraud statute to prosecute vote-fraud cases. That decision wiped out a 2004 mail-fraud conviction and indictment of Loren Glenn Turner, a Pikeville resident accused of being the "bag man" in elections for Ross Harris, a prominent Eastern Kentucky political fund-raiser who died June 24. Harris was convicted of mail fraud and vote fraud in 2004, but his convictions also were dismissed, by law, upon his death.