Aug. 29—A federal jury acquitted two former Kentucky State Police officers accused in an excessive force case last week after a five-day trial.
The jury returned a verdict of not guilty Friday evening at the U.S. District Court in London for Derrek Lovett, now 32, and Michael Logan Howell, 34, after deliberating for about eight hours, according to Somerset Greg Ousley, who represented Lovett.
The case dated to August 2020, when someone started a fire at a house Lovett was having built in Whitley County.
Howell, Lovett and Jeremy Elliotte were among the officers who went looking for a man named Bradley Hamblin, who was considered a suspect in the arson.
Hamblin later claimed in a lawsuit that officers beat him after he was handcuffed, breaking bones in his face and causing a head injury.
A federal grand jury charged that Elliotte and Lovett violated Hamblin’s Constitutional rights by using excessive force on him, and all three officers with conspiracy to come up with a false story to cover up the assault as well as lying about what happened.
Elliotte, now 30, pleaded guilty last February to a misdemeanor charge of going into the house where Hamblin was without a warrant, which was a violation of the right of other people in the house to not be subjected to unreasonable search.
Prosecutors agreed to drop other charges against Elliotte as part of his plea.
U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom sentenced Elliotte in June to six months in jail followed by six months of home detention.
A civil lawsuit filed by Hamblin remains pending.
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