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<\/a>The Paper Trail: A Manufactured Threat<\/p>\nThe document Liggins distributed was designed to look like a printout of a May 15, 2026, email sent to him by an attorney at Louisville-based law firm Kaplan, Johnson, Abate & Bird.<\/p>\n
The \u201cemail\u201d outlined an \u201caggressive and comprehensive legal campaign\u201d against unnamed individuals spreading \u201cdefamatory statements\u201d about Liggins on social media and in public meetings. It warned that representatives from the law firm would be physically present at the May 27, 2026, board of education meeting to \u201cobserve, document, and identify statements\u201d that could lead to civil liability.<\/p>\n
However, the investigator noted it was established before her inquiry even began that the document was completely fabricated. Kaplan, Johnson, Abate & Bird had never met with Liggins, and no such email was ever sent.<\/p>\n
Latherow was tasked with determining whether Liggins created the document and why he distributed it. While the investigator found \u201cinsufficient evidence\u201d to conclusively prove Liggins created the document on school equipment\u2014noting that Liggins\u2019 personal devices were unavailable for search\u2014digital forensics paint a highly suspicious picture:<\/p>\n
11:36 a.m. (May 20):\u00a0Exactly one hour before his administrative building walkabout, Liggins\u2019 district network search logs show he queried:\u00a0\u201cbest attorneys near me\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0\u201cbest attorneys in louisville.\u201d11:37 a.m. (May 20):\u00a0Liggins searched for:\u00a0\u201ckaplan johnson abate & bird llp.\u201d3:55 p.m. Liggins searched for: \u201c(redacted) superintendent search\u201dCaught on Camera: The 7-Minute Walkthrough<\/p>\n
According to the report, district personnel used a vast network of time-stamped security cameras to trace Liggins\u2019 movements between 12:44 p.m. and 12:51 p.m. on May 20, just a few days after Camuel gave a televised interview on WKYT criticizing district leadership and a looming budget crisis.<\/p>\n
Video records show Liggins exiting his office carrying a yellow folder:<\/p>\n
12:44 p.m.:\u00a0Liggins is seen placing a copy on a microwave in a fourth-floor break area.12:44 p.m. to 12:48 p.m.:\u00a0Liggins is seen entering and exiting Rooms 407 and 411 on the fourth floor, and Room 311 on the third floor. In each room, staff found copies of the email minutes later.12:48 p.m.:\u00a0Liggins is observed on the second floor near a water cooler, where a copy was later recovered.12:49 p.m.:\u00a0Liggins is caught on camera sliding a document directly under Camuel\u2019s second-floor office door. Camuel found the paper when she returned from lunch.12:50 p.m.:\u00a0Liggins enters Room 207 on the second floor.12:51 p.m.:\u00a0Liggins is recorded entering the public men\u2019s restroom on the fourth floor. Latherow noted this was highly unusual because Liggins has his own private executive restroom on the same floor. He exited 15 seconds later; a staff member immediately discovered another copy of the email inside.An IT Deletion and a Middle-of-the-Night Email<\/p>\n
Other findings in the report involve Liggins\u2019 behavior after the school board convened in a virtual, closed-session meeting on Monday, June 8, to discuss a draft legal complaint sent by Camuel\u2019s attorney.<\/p>\n
During that virtual meeting, while Liggins was alone in his office, he began texting district IT personnel:<\/p>\n
8:10 p.m.:\u00a0Liggins texts IT staffer:\u00a0\u201cCan you guys tell what people printed in the district?\u201d\u00a0The employee responds they will investigate the following morning.8:35 p.m.:\u00a0Liggins texts a second IT staffer:\u00a0\u201cDoes our network keep copies of print jobs?\u201d8:37 p.m.:\u00a0The employee replies:\u00a0\u201cYes, based on usernames and the filenames of what was printed.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to IT records, at exactly 8:37 p.m.\u2014the exact minute he received that confirmation\u2014the stand-alone printer on Liggins\u2019 office desk went offline. When IT specialists later examined the printer, they discovered the print history for the entire past year had been completely wiped. IT staff told investigators they had \u201cno explanation\u201d for how this occurred other than human intervention.<\/p>\n
Fewer than seven hours later, at 3:13 a.m. on June 9, Liggins sent an email to the school board requesting a separation agreement.<\/p>\n
The \u201cMistake\u201d Defense Dismantled<\/p>\n
Liggins declined to meet with Latherow during the investigation. However, in previous communications with district administrators, Liggins claimed the distribution was an accident.<\/p>\n
He asserted he was personally hand-delivering letters to employees affected by recent district layoffs, and that the manufactured email had somehow \u201cgotten mixed up\u201d in his yellow folder. He claimed he mistakenly left the legal threat under Camuel\u2019s door and that he was relying on \u201coutdated list information\u201d when trying to hand her a letter.<\/p>\n
Latherow\u2019s report systematically dismantles Liggins\u2019 claims, calling his explanation \u201cchallenging to accept as legitimate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The investigator revealed that Liggins\u2019 assistant had already sent out personalized, mail-merged emails to all employees impacted by the budget cuts on May 18\u2014two days prior. Latherow found that the letter Liggins claimed he was trying to deliver to Camuel was an undated, generic form letter addressed to \u201cDear Colleague\u201d that his assistant had never seen, was not on the district\u2019s network, and made no sense to deliver to Camuel, whose position and pay were completely unaffected by the staff reductions.<\/p>\n
A District in Chaos: Contextualizing the Fall of Dr. Liggins<\/p>\n
The findings of this report tie together several major stories covered extensively by WKYT over the past year, illustrating a school system locked in administrative warfare.<\/p>\n
1. Placing Liggins on Leave & The Budget Fallout<\/p>\n
On June 10, 2026\u2014just one day after Liggins\u2019 late-night separation email and the printing-deletion incident\u2014the Fayette County Board of Education voted unanimously (5-0) to place Liggins on paid administrative leave. The board immediately appointed Dr. Bill Bradford as acting superintendent, later approving a contract addition of $312.49 per day.<\/p>\n
The board also formally retained the VanAntwerp law firm to investigate Liggins\u2019 employment, a probe that culminated in this week\u2019s report. Liggins subsequently proposed a contract settlement demanding the school board pay out the more than three remaining years of his contract\u2014a proposal the board flatly rejected.<\/p>\n
The leadership collapse coincided with intense public outrage over a $95 million loan the district took out to cover operational expenses. Board Chair Tyler Murphy and the board faced sharp scrutiny for budget deficits, leading state lawmakers Matt Lockett (R-Jessamine\/Fayette) and Senate Appropriations Chairman Chris McDaniel (R-Kenton) to call for Liggins and Murphy\u2019s resignation. In January 2026, Lockett went as far as filing an unprecedented petition in the Kentucky House to remove Murphy from the board.<\/p>\n
In July, Murphy and the Kentucky Education Association filed a lawsuit in Franklin Circuit Court challenging Senate Bill 4, a Republican-backed law passed in April 2026 that disqualifies active school employees in large counties from serving on school boards\u2014a measure that would prevent Murphy, a teacher in Boyle County, from running for re-election this fall.<\/p>\n
2. Whistleblower Retaliation Claims<\/p>\n
The intimidation findings against Liggins mirror a pattern of allegations of retaliation within the district.<\/p>\n
On June 25, 2026, Liggins filed his own whistleblower complaint with the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability (OEA), claiming the school board retaliated against him after he raised concerns about the possible misuse of public funds, unauthorized remote work, and weak attendance controls.<\/p>\n
However, Liggins himself faces accusations of aggressive retaliation. On July 13, 2026, Mira Beth Muth, the former district-wide Grants Accounting Manager, filed a whistleblower lawsuit in Fayette Circuit Court. Muth alleges she was systematically targeted, demoted to the tax department, and eventually non-renewed after she repeatedly reported the district\u2019s improper grant compliance, questionable inter-fund transfers, and a $250,000 backlog of unprocessed tax checks directly to Liggins.<\/p>\n
Muth\u2019s lawsuit followed another high-profile filing by Ann Sampson-Grimes, the district\u2019s former Executive Director of Budget and Financial Planning. Sampson-Grimes filed for injunctive relief, claiming her reassignment to a \u201cTechnical Engineer\u201d role was a retaliatory demotion that stripped her of her duties and sliced her salary by an administrative additive of $33,500 per year after she blew the whistle on \u201cfraud, waste, and mismanagement of district funds.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. Past Regulatory Sanctions<\/p>\n
Liggins\u2019 tenure was already under a regulatory microscope. A 2022 OEA investigation previously found that Liggins and Chief HR Officer Jennifer Dyar had violated state law and board policy by failing to properly post classified job vacancies.<\/p>\n
That finding triggered two separate cases before the Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board (EPSB):<\/p>\n
In\u00a0Case No. 2254748, EPSB officially issued Liggins an\u00a0admonishment\u00a0in December 2023.In\u00a0Case No. 2557122, EPSB issued a\u00a0\u201cDeferral for Training\u201d\u00a0sanction, which was formally finalized in the state board\u2019s January 5, 2026, meeting minutes.<\/p>\n
4. The Attorney General Steps In<\/p>\n
Liggins attempted to fight his suspension using open-government laws. He filed an Open Meetings Act complaint against the school board regarding the June 10 special meeting where he was sidelined.<\/p>\n
On July 15, 2026, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman ruled that the school board committed a technical violation of the Open Meetings Act by failing to provide an adequate verbal explanation in open session before entering closed session.<\/p>\n
The AG also concluded the board\u2019s closed-session discussion regarding Liggins\u2019 resignation, the allegations against him, and the appointment of an acting superintendent was entirely authorized under the state\u2019s personnel exception.<\/p>\n
Board chair responds<\/p>\n
In a statement to WKYT, Board Chair Tyler Murphy said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Board sought this review because it recognized the seriousness of the allegations and, if substantiated, the need to address them according to policy and law. However, the departure \u2013 with no settlement or buyout \u2013 allows us to move forward with a focus on our students and schools. This is a new chapter for FCPS and we\u2019re looking forward to a successful school year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liggins responds<\/p>\n
Dr. Liggins\u2019 attorney, Amos Jones, issued the following statement on his behalf regarding the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first time we ever saw this so-called investigative report was at 5:33 p.m. Wednesday when my aunt in Pennsylvania e-mailed a WKYT report that embedded on a Web site a 10-page attachment from the same law firm that was reported in June to the Kentucky Office of Educational Accountability for serial transgressions now under investigation,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWhat are they doing still chasing Dr. Liggins, after they were exposed in the June report filed in Frankfort? This surprise is a new low in ethics and abuse, and I can see why they have hidden it, given that it\u2019s strangely dated August 14, 2026 \u2013 five days ago. We don\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liggins filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that VanAntwerp\u2019s involvement in the investigation was tainted because the district had already publicly displaced Liggins, installed replacement leadership and then used the law firm to examine matters after the board\u2019s goal was achieved.<\/p>\n
Jones also said that the report does not answer any accountability questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cVanAntwerp is trying to change the subject from fraud, waste, and abuse to Dr. Liggins\u2019s day-to-day foot traffic among offices where he always hand delivered materials to his subordinates,\u201d Jones said \u201cThe Kentucky Attorney General\u2019s office already has discredited the lawyers in these cases in their slap-down over the open-meetings violations done on advice of such paid counsel \u2013 some of the same folks who facilitated officials\u2019 June faking of Dr. Liggins\u2019s non-resignation that misled the media and the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the statement, Jones said that this is a final effort to rehabilitate the law firm\u2019s image.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the last-ditch, low-road effort of failed lawyers with a conflict of interest to try to rehabilitate their shattered images,\u201d he said. \u201cTaking the high road as usual, Dr. Liggins will continue to cooperate with the state investigators focused on fraud, waste, and abuse, including time stolen from FCPS by employed personnel, about whom we have a sworn eyewitness statement from June.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camuel responds<\/p>\n
In a statement to WKYT, Hannah Wilson, the attorney for Adrielle Camuel, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are grateful to the VanAntwerp firm and Leigh Latherow for conducting such a thorough and insightful investigation into Representative Camuel\u2019s claims. While there were facts in this report of which we were not aware, the report reaches the same conclusion we reached back in May, namely, that Dr. Liggins intentionally slipped that email under Representative Camuel\u2019s door to silence her. Anybody who thinks that is an appropriate course of action has no business being the leader of a school district. <\/p>\n
We are glad to see that the District and Dr. Liggins have parted ways in the aftermath of this incident and hope this next chapter for Fayette County Public Schools is one marked by good leadership grounded in transparency and accountability.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WKYT. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – A newly released independent investigation has concluded that retired Fayette County Public Schools (FCPS)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,347474,6270,347475,3,6161,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-819292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-demetrus-liggins","tag-investigation","tag-legal-threats","tag-news","tag-superintendent","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}