It looks like a competitive May primary is still possible for one Kenton County Family Court judge race.
A motion to dismiss a lawsuit against Ben Dusing, claiming he is not eligible to run because his law license is temporarily suspended, was filed this week.
That means there will likely be three candidates for District 2: Dusing, Carl Knochelmann, Jr., and Terri King Schoborg. The two top vote-getters will move on to the November general election.
And while the race has been largely overshadowed by Dusing’s legal difficulties and Facebook videos, LINK wanted to dive into the role of a family court judge and what each candidate would bring to the table.
The Kenton County Family Court oversees adoption, custody, dependency, neglect and abuse, child support, divorce, domestic violence, interpersonal protection, and paternity cases.
Judges make decisions like: what happens to abused and neglected children; whether removal of children from a home is necessary; who gets custody of children; treatment plans for parents with addiction or mental illness; determining when reunification of families is possible and when termination of parental rights is necessary; adoption; when restraining orders are needed in domestic violence cases; and more.
Dusing has been open about the fact that he wants to reform Kenton County Family Court because of what he sees as unfair practices that he says he experienced in custody cases involving his children. Dusing has primarily worked in criminal defense.
Knochelmann is a Covington attorney who has worked on criminal and family court cases full- and part-time since the 90s, he said in a February Optimist Club appearance about his candidacy for judge. He also said he is running in part because of what he sees as unfair practices within the Family Court, including how child support is determined and meted out.
King Schoborg has worked as a family law attorney in Northern Kentucky since the 80s. As soon as she was out of law school she became a guardian ad litem, a court-appointed case investigator. She was part of a group of attorneys that formed guardian ad litem panels for the district court – they developed a set of guidelines that are now used across the state. She has worked on more than 5,000 child protective cases.
But before we get into each of the candidates, here’s a brief rundown of the history of family court in Kenton County:
Until 2008, the types of cases the family court usually handles went through district court judges (paternity, child custody, children born to people not married are all examples) and circuit court judges (civil custody litigation involving dissolution of marriage or divorce). Only the district court had jurisdiction over dependency, abuse and neglect cases.
Current judges are Christopher Mehling (Division 2), and Acena Beck (Division 5). Mehling is the outgoing judge who will be replaced by Dusing, King Schoborg or Knochelmann.
The judges serve eight-year terms.
Complicating things slightly is House Bill 214, which would add a fourth family court judge effective Jan. 2, 2023. The bill is on Gov. Andy Beshear’s desk awaiting signature. Assuming he signs it, whoever loses the May primary could potentially have another opportunity at a judge’s seat.
Now on to the candidates.
Terri King Schoborg
King Schoborg started practicing law when she was 23. She opened a private practice in Latonia with her brother and has been in business there for 35 years.
“This is who I am,” she said. “This is what I am. This is what I do.”
The most common types of cases to come through family court, King Schoborg said, are dependency, abuse and neglect cases.
“Parents on drugs, domestic violence, victims of domestic violence, children that are physically abused,” she said. “There’s lots of those types of cases. And that’s what I’ve done.”
While King Schoborg was reluctant to speak on the record about her opponents, she did say this:
“Right now, the actual thing that people should be prioritizing is getting lost in all the theatrics,” she said.
Her opponents, she said, don’t know a lot about the kinds of things they’d be presiding over if they were to be elected – at least, she said, not as much as she does.
“They’ve never been to a Cabinet for Families and Children meeting with families or tried to work on treatment plans,” King Schoborg said. “They don’t know about federal laws about termination of parental rights, and how long a child can be in foster care. I’ve seen us terminate parental rights on a child, and then they don’t get adopted. I know the issues to look for. I know when to give parents more time. I feel like I have insight into that.”
This experience isn’t only helpful for a family court judge, she said; it’s vital.
“A family court judge has broad power and discretion,” King Schoborg said at the Feb. 16 Optimist Club Candidate Speaker Series. “They make decisions about children, where they are going to live, whether they should be removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect. They decide whether parental rights should be terminated. These are life-changing and forever decisions made by a family court judge. We need to make sure the family court judge has the experience they need to make these hard decisions.”
Beyond her professional work, King Schoborg has raised three children, which, she said, gives one insight into what children need and how trauma can affect a child.
“I believe that I’m the right candidate,” King Schoborg said. “I have the stability that the Kenton County Family Court needs and I would ask you to vote for me in the upcoming election.”
Carl Knochelmann, Jr.
Knochelmann grew up in Taylor Mill and is one of 12 children. He is, he said at the Feb. 16 Optimist Club series, a single father to three adult children.
“I am very active in all of my grandchildren’s activities,” he said. “I coached my children for about 25 years.”
Knochelmann received a bachelor’s degree in physics and electrical engineering, then earned a law degree. He went though paramedic school and served six years in the Coast Guard. He worked as a patent attorney at GE before being laid off in 1994, when he decided to practice law full-time.
Knochelmann said he has primarily focused on family law and criminal law in his practice. He also said his personal and professional experience in family court played a role in his decision to run.
“During my practice, I noticed inequities in both the custodial and the support orders being entered,” he said. “I noticed some attorneys could almost always get favorable treatment with certain judges. Or conversely, some attorneys would have difficulty getting fair decisions from certain judges no matter what the facts were.”
So, he said, he started advocating for change.
Knochelmann said he went to Kentucky child support commission meetings in Frankfort, and has been going for 20 years. But a lot of his complaints, he said, fell on deaf ears.
“Because it’s all about money,” Knochelmann said. “When people say ‘child support’ they think it’s the child support money you’re talking about but it isn’t. It’s the money that the state gets from the federal government to run the state child support system. That is an interesting system that I was fighting when I was down there. My advocacy was for fair child support.”
Knochelman was in and out of court for more than 20 years related to custody and child support with the mother of one of his children, who was born in 1997.
A 2017 decision related to an appeal Knochelmann made on the case said, “to describe this twenty-year litigation between Knochelmann and [his child’s mother] as contentious would be an understatement.”
The decision gets into some of the specifics of the case, which are largely related to Knochelmann appealing child support and asking the mother of his child for child support.
The decision concludes with:
“Finally, Knochelmann contends that he is entitled to a review of child support pursuant to KRS 403.213(1), stating that the last review was in 2008, when the family court imputed income to him. In the May 5, 2014, order, the court stated that Knochelmann ‘did not provide the evidence regarding the parties incomes’ and therefore denied his motion.”
That motion was related to whether he should be required to reimburse the mother of their child $55 per month for health insurance.
Knochelmann actually endorsed King Schoborg when she ran in 2018 for family court judge. King Schoborg won the May primary that year but was defeated by about 1,000 votes in the November election. King Schoborg received 20,000 votes.
“I have known Terri professionally for over 25 years,” Knochelmann wrote on Facebook on Nov. 4, 2018. “Terri is fair minded and has worked diligently for children and families as long as I’ve known her. Terri is the only candidate who has the legal experience, the life experience and the gravitas to be a fair and impartial Family Court Judge. Please vote for Terri King Schoborg for Family Court Judge on November 6, 2018.”
Knochelmann declined LINK nky’s request for comment for this story.
Ben Dusing
Dusing received his law degree in 2001 and went on to serve as law clerk for two federal judges who, he said, taught him how to be a judge. He was then an assistant U.S. attorney and went into private practice in 2010.
Dusing has operated most recently as a criminal defense attorney, representing high-profile cases such as Doug Evans, who was convicted of operating a shell company to get minority contracts for his landscaping business. He is also representing former Cincinnati city councilman Jeff Pastor, who is accused of taking bribes on development deals while in office.
Dusing’s license to practice law in Kentucky, and then Ohio, was temporarily suspended in February after the Kentucky Supreme Court reviewed allegations that he threatened two Northern Kentucky attorneys and used amphetamines during a federal criminal trial in New York. He is required to submit to a psychological evaluation to determine his mental fitness to practice law.
This led to a lawsuit that NKY attorney Brian Halloran filed March 15, saying Dusing is not eligible to be on the ballot because he doesn’t currently have his law license.
But, this week’s motion to dismiss reads:
“The plain language of Section 122 of the Kentucky Constitution requires bar licensure ‘to be eligible to serve as a judge of the Circuit Court. The text … does not require a bar licensure to be a candidate and as such, the petition should be denied, the matter dismissed, and the Respostant [Dusing] should be allowed to “stand for election.”
A final decision has not been made on the motion to dismiss.
Dusing has been vocal about his thoughts about the Kenton County Family Court and, like Knochelmann, what he sees as problems he said he has personally experienced within it. He has posted more than 70 videos on Facebook, in which he delves into what those problems are.
“We have a problem with this court,” Dusing said at the Optimist Club series talk on Feb. 16. “We have a problem with this division of this court. I’m talking about Division 2. The problem is this: It does not have the public’s confidence.”
Dusing, like Knochelmann, brought up what he sees as problematic relationships between judges and attorneys.
“This idea that in this day and age that we can have a court of law that does not operate consistent with the rule of law but is insead subjected to influences of cronyism and favoritism,” Dusing said.
The Kenton County Family Court Division 2, Dusing said, ruined his kids.
“They will never be the same,” he said. “They learned in an instant that one of the two most important things in their lives could be taken away from them in the blink of an eye.
I had my children briefly taken away from me in the span of six hours without having the opportunity to respond. I will tell you those children will never be the same.”
He went on to talk about soccer moms spending 36 days in jail because they failed to pay a fee and law enforcement officers “coming forward to talk about bench warrants being issued like edicts from the throne of an emperor.”
Dusing said he is running because he thinks the Kenton County Family Court system has failed the community.
“We can do better,” he said. “We must do better. I know that no matter who is elected, we will do better.”
Assuming Dusing is not removed from the ballot, the candidates will face off on May 17. A winner will be determined on Nov. 8.
