Sentence cut for KY man who testified in high-profile case

A witness against a Kentucky man convicted of murder in federal court after being pardoned in state court has had his sentence reduced.

Nathan Wagoner, 42, was a witness against Patrick Baker, who was convicted in state court in 2017 in the shooting death of Donald Mills, a drug dealer in Knox County killed in 2014 as two men tried to rob him of pain pills and money.

Baker was sentenced to 19 years in prison, but just two years later, in December 2019, then-Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned him.

However, federal authorities started an investigation that led to a new charge against Baker earlier this year of murdering Mills while committing a drug crime.

Wagoner, of Laurel County, was one of several prosecution witnesses against Baker. He told jurors that he had been a friend and business partner of Baker’s, had sold him pain pills and methamphetamine, and had used drugs with him.

Wagoner said Baker’s addiction had become a “major financial problem” for him by the spring of 2014.

Wagoner testified that Baker approached him with an idea to rob a drug dealer to get money and pills, but that he turned Baker down and told him to go home.

Baker, 43, testified in his own defense, denying he killed Mills and saying witnesses against him lied or were mistaken.

However, the jury convicted him. He is scheduled to be sentenced in December and faces up to life in prison.

At the time he testified against Baker, Wagoner was serving a 143-month sentence in federal prison after being convicted of possessing and selling methamphetamine in Laurel County.

Wagoner said on the witness stand that prosecutors had not promised to seek a sentence reduction if he testified against Baker, but that he hoped doing so would help him get out of prison sooner.

In an order posted Nov. 1, U.S. District Judge Robert E. Wier approved an amended judgment cutting Wagoner’s sentence from 143 months to 86 months, a reduction of nearly five years.

Wier also reduced the time Wagoner will have to spend on supervised release after getting out of prison to three years, down from five years initially.

Federal prosecutors can request sentence reductions for people who have testified to help their case.

Wagoner’s attorney, Adele Burt Brown, said she could not comment on whether the government requested a sentence reduction for Wagoner. The U.S. Attorney’s Office also declined to comment.

The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna Reed, filed a document in Wagoner’s case Oct. 7, six weeks after Baker was convicted, but it was sealed. A document from Brown also was sealed.

That is not unusual for court documents that contain sensitive information.

Bevin pardoned or commuted sentences in hundreds of cases at the end of his term, but the decision in Baker’s case proved more controversial than many because his brother and sister-in-law had held a political fundraiser for Bevin in 2018, raising $21,500 to pay down Bevin’s campaign debt.

Baker’s pardon caused an uproar, with state Senate Republicans called it a “travesty and perversion of justice,” and two Democratic legislators saying it raised a strong appearance of corruption.

Bevin has denied politics motivated his decision to pardon Baker.