(LEX 18) — A Kentucky commonwealth’s attorney has been facing questions about a series of Facebook messages that appear to show him offering court favors in exchange for nude photos and videos. For the first time, LEX 18 has talked with the woman on the other side of those messages.
Misty Helton, 28, is being held in a Kentucky jail on drug trafficking charges and a count of fleeing and evading. She was arrested just days after news broke of the alleged messages between her and commonwealth’s attorney Ronnie Goldy. Goldy’s office handles felony criminal cases for Bath, Menifee, Montgomery, and Rowan counties.
In an interview at the jail where she’s being held, Helton said that Goldy did help her in her court cases in exchange for nude photos and videos. She tells LEX 18 he got her warrants withdrawn and did a lot of favors for her.
"In hindsight, it was just something to keep me in debt to him," Helton said.
The hundreds of pages of messages were provided to LEX 18 in July by an attorney representing former Judge Beth Maze. Maze is facing charges of forgery and tampering with public records, and Goldy is a witness against her in that case.
Helton said that her relationship with Goldy started as a friendship. She said she met him in 2015 when she was facing charges in a different criminal case.
“Ronnie came to the jail to talk to me about it,” Helton said. “I didn't have a lawyer present, and at first I asked him 'do I need a lawyer' and he was like 'no, that's okay, I'm on your side.'"
But she says that alleged friendship soon became transactional.
"It started out personal and then it turned into that I owed him," Helton said.
In August, the Mt. Sterling Advocate reported that Helton told the paper she and Goldy had just been friends, and that she’d defended Goldy.
Last week, Helton told LEX 18 that she didn’t want to see herself as a victim or as a drug addict, but that looking back, she feels like she was taken advantage of.
“I thought I was someone important to Ronnie,” Helton said. “Like, I thought we were more friends than anything and in hindsight, looking back, I don’t feel like he felt the same way."
Goldy's attorney, Tim Denison, said that his client never solicited sexual photos or videos from Helton and that they intend to prove it in an upcoming hearing regarding the future of Goldy's legal license.
Helton said she’s been in and out of the criminal justice system since 2014.
“The only thing he could keep over my head was court favors because I've always been in the system,” Helton said. “And being in debt to the commonwealth's attorney is like a life sentence for somebody in the justice system.”
Helton said that the day after her most recent arrest, she was visited by an attorney for Goldy who tried to get her to sign a document saying that she wasn’t a victim of Goldy and that she had allowed everything that happened.
“I did allow it,” Helton said. “But it doesn't make it right, and I never thought about somebody using their authority at their advantage, you know?”
