Feds rebut claim that prosecuting man pardoned by Gov. Matt Bevin is vindictive

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In court papers, the government is opposing the motion Patrick Baker, who was pardoned by Gov. Matt Bevin for a homicide but convicted in August of murder in federal court, to cap his federal sentence at 19 years — the punishment he got in state court. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna Reed also disputes Baker’s claim the federal prosecution is vindictive or violates the Constitution’s prohibition against double jeopardy. 

Responding to a motion filed by one of Baker’s lawyers, Patrick Renn, Reed notes the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the federal and state governments can prosecute the same case because they are “separate sovereigns.” 

Reed also said Baker’s federal indictment contains different elements not present in his state murder charge. For example, the federal government had to prove he caused the death of Donald Mills during a drug-trafficking offense.  

“Because these two crimes contain different elements, the defendant’s double jeopardy claim fails,” she said.

More:Working weekends, late nights, Gov. Matt Bevin rushed to issue hundreds of pardons

Baker faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced Jan. 18 by U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom, who moved back the hearing originally set for Tuesday. 

Baker was sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2017 for reckless homicide and other crimes but Bevin pardoned him two years later as a lame-duck governor leaving office. 

Bevin claimed in pardoning Baker that the evidence was “sketchy” against him in the slaying of Mills, 29, during a robbery at Mills' home in the Knox County community of Stinking Creek.

But the federal verdict undermined that claim, and a Courier Journal report showed how Bevin was mistaken.

More:Matt Bevin cited 'sketchy' evidence to pardon a killer. He couldn't have been more wrong

The government disclosed in June the FBI was conducting a separate investigation of whether Bevin issued the pardon — one of 670 acts of clemency as he left office in 2019 — in exchange for $21,500 that Baker’s brother and sister in law raised at a fundraiser the year before to retire Bevin’s campaign debt. 

Bevin has disputed that was his motivation. 

The FBI has said it can neither confirm nor deny whether the investigation is continuing. 

Andrew Wolfson: 502-582-7189; awolfson@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @adwolfson.