A Henderson County official ruled that a breach of security had occurred for 73 employees of the Henderson County Detention Center stemming from an open records request that came from a candidate to be the next jailer.
According to Angela Comer, who is the appointed county employee to investigate suspected open records request breaches, jail employees fulfilled an October request from Anthony Willett but did not redact dates of birth or social security numbers before the records were sent to him.
Willett is running for Henderson County Jailer, and among the records he requested was the listing of the training that HCDC employees had received in the last five years. On that list was the information that jail employees failed to redact, said Comer, who is also the fiscal court clerk and the county’s human resources director.
On Friday, April 17, Willett posted the unredacted file on his campaign Facebook page. Within minutes, he was notified that the list contained the personal information, and he took it off his page, and then redacted the information himself and re-posted it, Willett said.
“I should’ve probably checked it but hindsight is 20/20,” Willett said.
Comer said that the jail was at fault for supplying the unredacted files, but she said Willett should have also redacted the file before posting.
Willett told the Hendersonian that in his request to HCDC he specified that all exempt information be redacted. A forwarded copy of the request bears that out.
Willett’s request for a variety of documents spanned from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2025. And because the number of documents was voluminous, jail employees were “overwhelmed” to respond to Willett, said Comer.
She said Jailer Bruce Todd will set up one year of credit monitoring for the employees whose information was breached. She said an outside company will provide the credit monitoring.
Comer said the violations were unintentional and no harm was intended, so there will be no criminal charges filed.
She said the protocol for her role is to forward her investigation to the state attorney general’s office, the Department of Local Government, the state Department of Public Accounts and the state office of the Kentucky State Police, which she said she did.
The request, according to Willett, was made to show that the training received at HCDC is inadequate. His opponent in the jailer’s race is Eddie Vaught, a captain at the jail who oversees HCDC’s training.
A message was left with Vaught. He did not return the message before this article was posted.
