Hear Matt Jones' explanation of the charges and grand jury's dismissal

Before we completely move on from the off-the-field incident that occurred between six Kentucky Football players and members of a UK fraternity back in March, it seems there is still a lot of confusion over the grand jury’s dismissal of the charges and how things got so far in the first place.

For example, the Courier-Journal’s Tim Sullivan fired off tweets insinuating it was an inside job. “Another attorney told me he expected no indictment because Lexington generally protects UK athletes,” Sullivan tweeted. “Too cynical? I don’t know.”

Or there is the more extreme case of Louisville superfan/radio host/law enforcement impersonator UofL Sheriff, who falls asleep every night next to copies of Josh Ali’s driving record. The Sheriff would pin his plastic badge to his Reno 9-1-1 costume and arrest all six Kentucky Football players if he could.

But rivalry-ing aside, it’s a complicated situation that has many normal, rational people wondering what actually happened for an altercation at a party to lead to burglary charges half a year later, and then a quick dismissal by a grand jury of their peers.

I can’t explain it and I’m the Cal Ripken Jr. of jury duty service in Fayette County. Thankfully, we have a Duke Law grad in the office and hosting Kentucky Sports Radio every morning from 10 a.m. to noon on 40 affiliates statewide. He gave his legal understanding of the matter on today’s show.

“Now that it’s over, I’m going to tell you what really happened,” Matt Jones explained. “I’m not talking about what happened at the party. I don’t know, I wasn’t there… Here’s what I know happened legally.

“These were not charges the Prosecutor’s Office even wanted to bring. There was one officer. And Kentucky is one of only a handful of states in the country where this can even happen. But we have a rule that an officer can bring it himself… The Prosecutor’s Office was not part of this. This was brought by the officer. Like I said, in most states you can’t do this but in Kentucky you can, and the officer is the one that pushed it.”

Jones added that he was told many people within the police department didn’t even want to bring the charges.

“One officer, for whatever reason, was committed to bringing it and that’s how it ended up as a charge.”

After fielding a few questions from Ryan Lemond, Jones added, “The Prosecutor’s Office, I’m not saying they were against it. But they weren’t the impetus for this. It was one officer. In most states you can’t do that, but in Kentucky you can.”

Hear the rest for yourself from KSR’s resident legal expert (Matt, not Ryan).