Alleged Letcher County courthouse ‘brothel’ victim comes forward, implicates slain judge

KENTUCKY (FOX 56) — Questions remain regarding the reported “brothel” that occurred in the same room where a Letcher County sheriff gunned down a district judge three years later.

Former Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines was charged with the murder of a public official after the Sept. 19, 2024, courthouse shooting.

Security cameras captured the entire exchange, including Stines unleashing gunfire on Judge Kevin Mullins.

Just days before the shooting, Stines was deposed in a lawsuit filed by two women, one of whom alleged that former Letcher County Deputy Sheriff Ben Fields forced her to have sex inside Mullins’ chambers for six months in exchange for staying out of jail. Attorneys have previously told FOX 56 that this lawsuit plays a bigger role in the shooting than meets the eye.

“I think that Mr. Stines’ demeanor prior to, during the deposition, and after the deposition are going to be important things to look at,” his attorney, Jeremey Bartley, said.

Victim claims Mullins held her “entire life in his hands”

Nexstar’s NewsNation spoke with Tya Adams, who said she knew Mullins through his past work as an assistant commonwealth attorney.

“That’s when he started introducing me to his friends,” Adams told NewsNation. “And we would do sex parties and perform shows and have sex with them for money, things like that.”

Although she said what happened with her was consensual, she felt pressured to go along with it, and she couldn’t say no.

“It was consensual, but it was the thing that we were so young, and then they used it against us and to destroy our lives later with the legal system, with the legal system and CPS systematically removing your whole life piece by piece,” Adams said. “He’s the one with the power; he holds my entire life in his hands. He’s the one who makes the decisions over whether I get to keep my children or not. He’s the one who makes the decisions on whether I go to jail.”

When asked if she was told to keep it under wraps, Adams said it was a given.

“Who would believe it anyway? Because the whole town’s doing it, you know, nobody cares. They’re all swingers. It’s all a big party to them. It was just like, so normal,” she said.

Mullins’ involvement with the sex ring allegedly hosted in his quarters has long been questioned.

On Dec. 6, NewsNation released audio recordings obtained from Fields’ criminal investigation. The woman in the recording, Sabrina Adkins, was one of two women who filed the 2022 lawsuit against Fields.

“He does have some videotapes of some stuff in the judge’s chambers just with girls, sexual and stuff,” Adkins said in the recording.

Those videotapes allegedly depict “Ben and just some higher-ups” engaging in sexual contact with the victims in Mullins’ chambers, according to Adkins. When asked to clarify who the “higher-ups” were, she explicitly mentions seeing “the judge.”

“I seen Judge Mullins having sex with a girl,” Adkins said.

Adkins’ attorney, Ned Pillersdorf, told NewsNation, “It’s like they were running a brothel out of that courtroom.”

Mullins was not listed as a defendant in the 2022 lawsuit, but it did note the acts were taking place in his chambers.

It came up again during grand jury proceedings. This was revealed in a July filing arguing for the court to uphold the indictment against the former sheriff.

“The only question presented pertaining to a pending civil case came at the 24:09 mark of
the recording when a grand juror said, ‘So, you said the ongoing lawsuit against the Sheriff’s
Office. Did Judge Mullins have any relation to that case in any way?” prosecutors wrote.

Stamper answered, “No…not.”

Prosecutors then clarified, “To your knowledge, was Judge Mullins involved?”

Stamper testified, “To my knowledge, no. No involvement.”

Adams’ interview marks the third time that women have alleged Mullins’ involvement went beyond just the room where it happened.

“I’ve had sex with him in the chambers,” she explained. “I was part of it. I was one of them.”

Former deputy jailer: ‘It was nasty, sickening’

Sarah Davis, a former deputy jailer at the Letcher County Jail, said she had never seen it firsthand, but that the stories she heard were “nasty and sickening.”

“That’s kind of the thing that everybody in the county knows, but it was confirmed to me after working in the jail, especially after being invited to a party myself,” Davis explained.

NewsNation’s Brian Entin asked her to clarify who invited her to the “sex party.”

“It was Mr. Mullins himself,” she said.

Further, she claims that Deputy Fields wasn’t an outlier.

“Did you ever see anyone having sex? I had never seen anybody having sex, but I had heard stories. One of the female guards specifically was telling me that one of the places she takes male inmates was the storage room. You can’t get in there without a key, and that’s where they take them. A lot of times, they get taken up into the courthouse, especially after hours, late at night, when nobody’s at work and nobody’s up there. So it’s all empty. It’s all empty space,” Davis explained.

And oftentimes, the inmates would be incentivized for participating.

“The smallest things, unless you’re going unless you’re going with one of the overheads; if they’re sleeping with the guard, it’s mostly for things like cigarettes, time out of cell, Pops, commissary, things like that,” Davis said.

She emphasized that when she heard the news that Mullins had been shot to death, she knew it was all “going to come out.”

“A lot of the corruption was going to come out,” Davis told NewsNation. “Because even I believe that the sheriff, he either knew something or something was going on that he knew about, that we all might not know about, but he was doing something to protect us.”

‘Is this what we want for our next generation?’

Why did the ring go undetected for so long? Adams believes it’s because the ones in control are the ones in charge.

“I don’t want our kids to have to grow up in this town like it has been for us, because once they get their hooks in you, they never let you go. You don’t get to live. You don’t get to choose your life. You don’t choose your own path. They do that for you,” she emphasized.

But in the aftermath, people like Davis have hope that once things come to light, change will finally come.

“There are so many people that have come out and spoken out about what Judge Mullins has done; even if we’re afraid to speak up on it, we need to, because is this what we want for our next generation?” Davis asked. “I want an actual community that’s not based on if you’ve got money and know people and if you’re willing to get on your knees or your back. It’s sickening.”

Court documents don’t name Mullins as a defendant in the Fields investigation. He was never criminally charged in connection with the allegations before his death.