Former Perry County jail administrator pleads guilty to misconduct charges

Timothy Kilburn, the former administrator of the Kentucky River Regional Jail in Hazard, admitted in court that he abused his position by taking money tied to workers’ compensation checks and jail accounts, a case that has put renewed pressure on how the facility is watched and audited.

Kilburn pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of official misconduct and abuse of public trust. Plea documents say he knowingly received cash from workers’ compensation checks on three occasions between 2013 and 2015, and that he took $10,000 from the jail’s accounts in 2014 and used it as his own. He served as jail administrator from 2005 until he was fired in 2015.

The plea turns a years-old theft investigation into a formal conviction. Kilburn was taken into custody in August 2025 after investigators accused him of stealing from workers’ compensation checks and from the jail’s accounts. He was ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution and faces up to five years in prison, although prosecutors have recommended probation.

That recommendation is tied to Kilburn’s cooperation. Prosecutors with the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office agreed to recommend a probated sentence in exchange for his information, and Kilburn also agreed to testify against Elisha Caudill. Caudill is charged in Perry County Circuit Court with tampering with public records, abuse of public trust, and theft by unlawful taking of $500 or more but less than $10,000. Sentencing for both men was reported as set for June 25.

The case matters in Perry County because the Kentucky River Regional Jail is not an abstract state office. It houses pre-trial detainees from Perry and Knott counties, and its finances are supposed to support a basic public function with a high level of trust. When an administrator is accused of siphoning money from workers’ compensation checks and jail accounts over several years, the damage reaches beyond the dollar amount. It touches employees who depended on those checks, staff who relied on honest bookkeeping, and taxpayers who fund the jail.

The timeline also raises hard questions about oversight. Kilburn’s plea covers conduct that stretched from 2013 to 2015, while he remained in charge until he was fired in 2015. For a local jail, that kind of gap suggests that internal controls, review procedures, or command oversight failed badly enough that misconduct could continue before it was brought into the open.

The jail’s past only sharpens those concerns. Larry Trent died in 2013 after a beating at the Kentucky River Regional Jail, and the jail’s insurance carrier later paid $2.375 million to settle a civil suit tied to his death. With another former administrator now pleading guilty, the question for Hazard and Perry County is no longer just what happened years ago, but what has changed inside the jail to protect inmates, staff, and public money now.