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August 11, 2025 • 21 mins
After a repeat felon took a mother and her children hostage, stabbed her, threatened to kill her unless the bank gave him money, then was arrested, the Louisville community asked how he was allowed to be roaming the streets at all.

Metro Council's (19 district) Anthony Piagentini discusses how he and Louisville Metro government have been asking for clarity on shock probations, funding for the juvenile detention center, Governor Beshear's silence, and how the public can be better informed about sociopaths living among us.
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You'ree News Radio eight forty wh s. Terry miners here.
Anthony Pagentini, former marine, super Fine Marine, Welcome back to the.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Studio, Fie. Thank you very much. Good to see Terry.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Metro council member for District nineteen and not shy about
sharing your opinions publicly. I like that about you.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
I've not been you know, that's one of the beautiful
things about big days. You know.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Does your wife ever say to you, hey, keep it down?

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Yeah, shut up is usually what she says. But you know,
there was a great meme that came up. Actually a
priest that I follow said it. It said something like,
you know, look, I'm Italian. People think I'm screaming, but
that's my normal speaking voice.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
I've been living with that my whole life. It's totally true.
So how many years have you been here Louisville thirteen
years now? Yeah, so you've got a good history here
and now your kids love it here, Your wife and
kids love it here.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, I love it, love it. This is my city.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Everybody's healthy and happy and good.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Yeah, no no complaints. Kids are back in school. Man,
that's a whole process. Like you just feel like you
adjusted to the summer thing. Now you're justing back to school.
But it's very exciting. I actually love as much as
time passes so quickly, love watching them grow up, mature,
seeing what kind of young women they're turning into. It's
a blast that I love who they're becoming. And it's great.

(01:13):
I'm blessed. I'm a truly blessed man. Let's talk like
a couple of guys right now. On Friday in our city,
a woman and her children were taken hostage. Something welled
up in.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Me right away. I was enraged. I am enraged and
immediately went into protection mode, thinking about my own family.
And it blows my mind oftentimes that people are not
incarcerated because a judge gave them shock probation when they
this person had already proven they didn't belong to be
roaming among the rest of society. So, as two guys talking,

(01:51):
what did you feel when you heard that story on Friday?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:54):
What makes I think that story is so shocking? It's
like the super effect of crime. Right begins with a
home invasion and everybody knows. You know, you almost like
dream about, like if somebody came into my house, what
would I do, Like how violated would I be And

(02:15):
what would I do to defend my family, defend my house?

Speaker 2 (02:17):
And I know what I would do, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Particularly if my family was there, it'd be over like
somebody's you know, somebody's not walking out here and and
and I'm going all in yeah. Right, So particularly when
people are there, it's one thing, you know, again differentiate
they rob an empty house, Okay, nobody's there, like it sucks,
but like when people are Okay, so the home invasions
to kick the other then kidnapping, kidnapping like takes them

(02:42):
with them to go to the bank. Right then they're
robbing the bank. Of all the crimes that you know,
I mean, it's pretty crazy, but like of all the
things that he did that day, and then he goes
out and then he's on the lamb, right, he starts
running around town. And I mean, I know, in addition
to how horribly the assault on this woman, right, you know,

(03:03):
she was injured during the whole process.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Everything about it, particularly.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
If you you know, are a family person, like you
just want to like cry out right, yeah, it's it's crazy.
And I even had friends at a very minor level
at Trinity High School. They put everybody on lockdown because
they didn't know how far away this person was going
and where they were. They were still a manhunt on
for him, you know, So they don't know what's happening.
They can't talk to their kids, there's no cell phone,

(03:31):
you know what I'm saying, Like, I mean, it shuts down.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
A community when something like that happens.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
But yeah, this is just it's it's not your normal
series of crimes. And that's what makes it so shocking
and so humanizing to even the average person listening to me.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
I think it's struck a chord with a lot of
people now, just because of the whole thing. Like you mentioned,
it's one thing to invade a home, but to take
people and then stab a woman and then threatened, threatened
in the bank, kill her if you don't give me
the money.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, So they're scarred, Yeah forever. Yeah they are. There's
just no there's no getting around that. As an elected official,
what are we doing in our society in terms of
handing out shot probations. I don't think they're being handed
out like lollipops. But there are some numbers that I
was able to obtain earlier today about how many shock

(04:24):
motions have been granted and estimated one hundred and nine
year to date this year versus two hundred last year,
so about the same count for this time of the year.
The motions asking for shot probation last year to four
hundred and twenty three were filed and two hundred were granted,
So less than half, but nearly half of them.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
You're over less than fifty percent.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
And in this year of twenty twenty five, year to
date there have been two hundred and sixty shock probations filed,
rather in one hundred and nine somewhere around there. Granted,
that's a lot of people that are out there who've
who've committed crimes and are now waltzing down sidewalks again.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah, to be clear, not just committed, convicted of the
crimes right right jury of their peers beyond a reasonable doubt,
convicted of their crimes, and then go back.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
To judges and asked.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
First of all, I have a philosophical objection with shock
probation Housebold five, the Say for Kentucky Act. The General
Assembly has started limiting how to use chock probation. I
think they need to go back and look at the
legal precedent in its totality and think about abolishing it wholesale.
So for example, we have to pick on a case,

(05:39):
you know, but I want people to think about this
at a more global level. But we have this case
in front of us. Right, So original sentence fourteen years
granted shock, probation out of after fourish months. Okay, if
somebody said he had a five year right, so he
had done his five years of time, perfect record, right,

(06:00):
Uh was honest, medication, going to therapy, remorseful first crime,
like you know, shock, Chuck all that up. And then
somebody wants to say, Okay, you know, is there a
process as this person of a family back at home
that can bring him in and take care of him
and make sure he's good and you know, get back
to a job and blah blah blah. Okay, Like we

(06:22):
could talk because there is a track record and I
know it was five years or fifty percent of it
or something like that. And I've had family members that
have been that have been convicted of crimes. Right, they
all did their time. They were all first time offenders,
and they did their time right whatever they were, whatever
they were sentenced to initially, Okay, that is what's so

(06:44):
would I find so mind blowing about it if you
thought that this person was so concerning and their crime
so egregious that they deserved in this case, fourteen years.
The idea that there is a legal methodology then to
then bring that back two months, to me, that is
the problem that we even have a process that that

(07:06):
is legal. So I think we need to take a
hard look at this, at that process. And that's what
I want to do. I want people to now refocus,
take their shock, and refocus on the system here because
we have spent you know, as a counselman, you said,
as a counselman, I don't have jurisdiction over the judges.
The state does. I don't have jurisdiction over the county

(07:27):
attorney's office. The state does. I don't have jurisdiction over
the sheriff's office. The state does. Right, These are all
separate elected officials. I only have jurisdiction over at lmpday.
For five years we have been blowing up lmpday on
reforms and solve the crime problem, and we have homicides
and come on, LMPD, go kick some mass out there.
But you know, but you know, do tie cross all

(07:47):
your t's and not all your eyes. If you make
a mistake, we'll fry you. But go out there and
solve this massive tripling and homicides that we've had. Okay,
they are one leg of a three legged stool. For
how law enforcement's done. Does anybody know how often, for example,
the County Attorney's office that officer pajtini, I charge this
person with five things? How often does the county attorney

(08:10):
before it even gets to the judge reduce it to two?
Offer plea deals all that stuff. Does anybody know what
those numbers are? Nobody does. No, we don't. I guarantee
Michael Connell doesn't want one hundred percent know how many
plea deals and what those deals are and who's cotting
them on his team like those that data doesn't exist
for the public. That's a shame. We need to release

(08:31):
that data related to the judiciary. We need data. You
just gave the data on a shock probation that doesn't
exist on any website. Like you've contacted the clerk of
the court. He's giving you that information. That's great that
you could do that, JOQ. Public can't pull that off.
So where is that data? And then I don't want
the aggregate data. I want to know by judge right again,

(08:54):
instead of focusing on this one egregious case, let's look
at all of them.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
Who is doling these out? What are they doing, Why
are they doing it?

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Is it one or two judges who are doing most
of it?

Speaker 2 (09:03):
That's right, that type of thing, that's right. Who's doing this?
Why are they doing it?

Speaker 3 (09:07):
And how many of those shot probations have we then
re arrested the person?

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Why should the county attorney and the judges be involved
on the front lines here when parole officers isn't that
their job? Aren't parole committees the people who are have
immediate contact with with people who are incarcerated, and you
come before a parole board, why wouldn't they decide that
somebody gets out for shot probation.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
That's a great question in the legal process.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
I know in this judges and in judges defend on
defensive judges, they're swimming in dockets, so they're overwhelmed with
all kinds of cases. And I'll bet the judge involved
in this case doesn't he remember it because there's a
zillion of them that he or she's well and.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
I'll and I'll say this to you, right.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
If I had to go back to my constituents and say, look, people,
you know we've got to you know us say increased tech.
We've got to look at our overall budget here because
we are the pressure on judges is so great. I'm
happy to have this conversation that they are letting people

(10:12):
go because or people are slipping through the cracks and
criminals are getting back on the street. And I mean
convicted criminals, not like we're guessing right. Convicted criminals are
getting back on the street more than more than often
because our jail is overcrowded or there's pressure on them
wherever the deal is. And we just spend a few
extra bucks to get a few more judges in there
to make sure that these people stay behind bars, or
we need the jail to be the right size so

(10:34):
that people stay behind bars if they are prison in
this case, when they're already convicted. That will fly through
this community.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Right.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
And my point is simply, Okay, we focus on LMPDA.
I want to focus I want the spotlight on all
these other players. I want to know what they're doing.
I want transparency on what they're doing. And I want
accountability for what they're doing as part of law enforcement
process because I hear from officers all the time, Pat

(11:03):
how often they are re arresting people that they arrested,
charged and were let go on some plea deal or
some leniency or some other reason. Again, how many of
those shock probations have been reoffended and rearrested?

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Right, we have no idea and underage people, you know,
youth crime. Oh, they get released right away. You have
a few more minutes.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Oh yeah, yeah, we definitely guess we got to talk
about the youth thing particularly.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
We'll get to that next. All right, it's going to
be a few minutes. If you can hang on there.
You got free water around here if you want some
big spender, thanks very much. I think there's potato chips
back there too. That is Anthony Piagentini on Metro Council.
Let's continue our conversation with Metro Council member Anthony Piagentini.

(11:48):
Appreciate the extra time here today, Anthony. We're talking, of course,
about the heinous act that a person who was shock probated,
he had a fourteen year prison sentence and was out
after five months, took a mother and children hostage on Friday,
robbed a bank, stab he stabs the mom, he runs away.
Police finally get him because a citizen saw something right,

(12:10):
and that's what we need. We need more citizen help,
that's for sure. So we've discussed that to a degree
about in terms of the responsibility of judges and the
county attorney and the other folks involved in this. Where
are we on this juvenile justice situation? We have lots
of I mean, last week we had a guy shooting
down a street where kids were waiting for school. But

(12:32):
he's a kid. Yeah, he's a center age person. What's
going on there?

Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah? So so again I'll come back to the city
has been doing everything we can. We need everybody else
to be doing their flipping job, all right, Juvenile justice
is the job of the state, Okay, our juvenile justice
facility for you know, very long story seven years ago
shut down, right, budgetary issues between us and the state.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
And people have told me that kids that are under
age that get arrested, they just get held and then
somebody comes and picks them up and they can be
back out committing more crimes twenty minutes later an hour.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Correct, Correct?

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Now there is an ability to transition some of them
and hold them longer. But the process is so bad
that a lot of times the judges and the police
and everybody, they really have no other options to the
judges instead of doing that, process will go ahead. And
again to some degree they feel I'm not picking on
them wholly because the.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Process sucks so bad.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
So three years ago, the state General Assembly allocated tens
of millions of dollars to build, to renovate and reopen
the juvenile Justice facility. Here the deal of the state,
because the state's job. They are going to run it.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Right.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
We commit it as metro government to add on additional
ancillary services right around education and other wrap around services
for the kids that are there. But the state needs
to run it. They need to own the building, run
the building, and then have the guards.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Right. That is their job. That's what they do.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
When every other of the one hundred and nineteen counties
in this state, and we're the most popular by far
to this day, we have no clue when that is
going to open. And I can one hundred and I'm
telling you right now again I said the count we
need the county attorneys to step up and get more
serious about crime and stop pleading everything under the sun.
When you transparency on what judges are doing related to
shock probation. Governor Andy Basher, somebody will have to explain

(14:19):
to me, considering how many votes he got from Jefferson
County to get him elected, what are we getting out
of it?

Speaker 2 (14:25):
Exactly?

Speaker 3 (14:26):
I'm not one hundred percent sure, And after tens of
millions of dollars being allocated, I don't we have no clue.
I'm an elected official here, I'm the head of the
minority caucus. I'm in leadership and metro government. I don't
have a bloody clue when that's going to be opened.
I've been told it's still years and I mean more
than two away from ever seeing the light of day.
And I can tell you it's because he has a

(14:48):
Department of Juvenile Justice leader who has a philosophical belief
that kids should never be in jail. Right, of course,
I can guarantee that person and the people making the
decision in Frankfurt don't live anywhere near a neighborhood that's
been terrorized by juveniles shooting each other.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Exactly, And it goes on almost nightly, right, if it's
certainly weekly.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yes, Yeah, it's been a huge epidemic of juvenile crime.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
So the governor you think is holding back funds because
somebody who.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Knows, They're just not.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
They're just they're just comfortable with the bureaucratic nonsense, right,
just they're you know, hey, guys, go ahead and build
this thing. But you know, if it takes five years, whatever,
if it takes six years, who cares, right Like, as
far as he's at this point, it won't be built
before governor but Shares out of office. So at this
point he doesn't care. So it's not so much that
he's holding it intentionally, he just doesn't care. Prove me wrong,

(15:42):
Have him show up to Jefferson County and he can
tell me that I'm a fool, and he's going to
get it done. And on a website post what the
timeline is that it's going to be built and why
it took this long to even get to where we
are today. And I've and I'm telling you, I've spoken
to everybody at Metro and this is the Greenberg administration,
the Democrat administration. Everybody I spoke to there related to
the status that knows precisely what's going on, said over

(16:03):
and over again, waiting for the state, waiting for the state,
no idea waiting for the state, waiting for the state.
This is the state's responsibility, executive branch, but fully allocated
from the General Assembly.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
They just don't care, completely apathetic.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
But the governor was here today to brag about Ford
and investing in the community. He was bragging about apple investing.
He's not in hiding in a rabbit hole somewhere. He's available.
Why doesn't he, Well, he's running for president.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
This is this is tactical stuff that could This is
that stuff helps you win presidencies. Okay, And I've seeing
this happen in Republican and Democrat Bobby Jendall. I was
working down in Louisiana when Bobby Jendall ran for president.
I can tell you his whole reputation tanked down there
because he gave up on the state. He focused on

(16:51):
running for president instead of doing his job. And that's
what's happening here. Yeah, he'll show up for the ribbon
cutting on the apple thing, and Ford announces a couple
of billion dollars and this is all great stuff. I'm
not saying that's bad, but he has a very big
executive branch that has other divisions in it, including juvenile justice,
and he doesn't want to get into that because getting
into that is messy. His political left wing doesn't want

(17:12):
to deal with it and hates the justice system.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
I mean, I'll pick on the ACLU here.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
The ACLU at this point I'm convinced is pro crime right,
because I have yet the ACLU has has come to
me and multiple times asked to get more people from
jail out of jail. They have never said, Hey, our
murder clearance rate is only fifty percent, how can we
get our murder homicide clearance rate to eighty percent?

Speaker 2 (17:34):
They've never asked.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
They don't care, right, And same thing here, It's not
so much that he just doesn't care. He's apathetic to
the situation because politically, why do you want to get
into that mess because that's the messiness of governing.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Of the guy who only served five months on a
fourteen year prison sentence and then terrorized a family, who
stabbed a mom, took her kids, robbed a bank, did
all the things he's done. He's robbed apparently dozens of
times people at ATMs, terrorizing them, scarring them mentally, he's
supposed to be with his family member, living with someone

(18:09):
who then is the person who's watching out for them,
not just underage kids, which do we have a curfew
where parents are responsible.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
Thereas I don't remember exactly what it is, but they're
supposed to be. There is an existing laws related to it.
I mean, it's the situation is so bad. Barbara Shanklin,
my very good colleague on Metro Council, has now put
out a resolution saying that parents should know what the
heck their kids are doing at night and make sure
they're responsible for their activities.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
Duh.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
The fact that a government representative has to say such
a thing out loud just shows you how bad that
the society has.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
We've let that concept decay and rot.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
If liberals are so opposed to people being jailed, how
many of them would take in the guy who took
the family hostage on Friday, Hey, come live with me.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
To your point about even even this particular case of
shock parole, he there were commitments made from from their family. Yea,
from the I mean we have to talk about, by
the way, another state agency, the Parole Board, and the
and the parole that the whole division of Parole that's
another state agency. We're not one hundred cent sure were
they checking on him, were they doing their job? We

(19:19):
don't one hundred percent no, right, And I could tell
you the whole home incarceration thing that.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
Is a complete and joke at this point.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Court So yeah, I mean so there are there are
other agencies and other levels that nobody's really taking a
hard look at that have a massive impact. And I
can tell you, as I said earlier, what's happening to
the morale LMPD. They're re arresting the same people and
saying themselves, why am I busting my hump? Putting my
I got They're the ones that have to get face
to face with these people in the streets, right, They're

(19:48):
not in a controlled environment and courts where everybody's cuffed
and everybody's controlled and all this stuff. They've got to
confront these people in the streets and re arrest them
over and over and over again.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
And worry that they're going to get shot.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
That's right within the complete unknown and chaos of doing
what they have to do for the same people over
and over again. I just saw a stat that said
that if you took you could reduce felony crimes by
eighty percent. If everybody that's committed three felonies was never
released again from jail, eighty percent reduction in filonious crime.

(20:20):
Because that's how small the group of people is that
we're talking about. We're not talking about the people that
you know do one crime, and we're talking about people
that repeat criminals that terrorize our communities. And I'm sorry,
but after I mean again, you commit one crime, you
come out, you should want to never do that again.
You do it again, I'm sorry. You earned every minute.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
When people show you who they are, Believe them, Believe them. Yeah,
Anthony Pagentiny, Great speaking with you again, always a pleasure.
Thanks very much. Thank you for your service, Marine, and
thank you for your service to the community. Thank you
back in a minute on news radio, Wait forty whas
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