Look, I been through it. Thirteen times in Hudson County jails for child support. Handcuffs at 4 a.m., intake, the bullpen, the whole filthy machine. So when I see a former governor of Kentucky catching contempt after contempt, arrest warrants, and the very real threat of 60 days behind bars over financial paperwork in his own kid’s support case… it lands different.

This ain’t theory for me. This is the same system that tried to bury me. And now it’s chewing on Matt Bevin.

Matt Bevin was the governor from 2015 to 2019. Tough-talking Republican, ran the state, signed the laws. He and his then-wife Glenna adopted four kids from Ethiopia, including Jonah in 2012 when the boy was five. Fast-forward to now - Jonah is 19, estranged, living in Utah, and he’s in Jefferson Family Court fighting his adoptive parents for retroactive child support and help finishing his education.

Jonah says he was sent to “troubled teen” facilities across states, including one in Jamaica that Jamaican authorities eventually shut down. He claims he was left there, alleges physical and emotional abuse, neglect, and that the money meant for his care got swallowed by places that broke him instead of helped him. He’s talking about cultural disconnection, no real role models, and feeling abandoned by the people who were supposed to be his parents. He even got a protective order against Matt Bevin at one point.

Bevin and Glenna see it differently. They say the facilities were supposed to provide care, that Jonah has his own behavioral and substance issues that will come out in court, and that they don’t owe retroactive support to an adult child who’s now intervening in their divorce case.

That’s the human mess. Two sides, both hurting, both digging in. And right in the middle of it sits Jefferson Family Court Judge Angela Johnson, trying to force transparency the old-fashioned way - with court orders and the threat of jail.

Here’s where it gets ugly for Bevin.

For months the court ordered him and Glenna to turn over standard financial stuff: tax returns, bank statements, asset info, income details. The kind of paperwork every parent in a support case has to produce. Glenna complied. Matt Bevin kept coming up short - incomplete, redacted, late, or not at all. The judge called it bad faith. She warned him. Then she held him in contempt.

March 2026: 60 days in jail or post a $500 bond and hand over the documents. Bevin tried to get Judge Johnson removed from the case, claiming bias. He took it all the way to the Kentucky Supreme Court. They told him no - disagreement with a judge’s rulings isn’t bias. The judge stayed on the case.

Then in June 2026, fresh arrest order. Same song, second verse. Fail to produce the records by the deadline and it’s another 60 days plus another $500. The judge basically said the rules apply to everybody, even a guy who used to live in the governor’s mansion.

That’s the part that should make every father who’s ever sat in family court sit up.

Because I know that feeling. The one where the court says “jump” and if you don’t jump high enough or fast enough, they hit you with contempt. Paperwork becomes a weapon. Deadlines become tripwires. And jail becomes the enforcement tool for debt and disclosure.

Bevin had lawyers. He had money. He had name recognition. He still got hit with warrants and jail threats. Imagine what happens to a regular guy on a production line or driving a cab with no political connections and bad credit. The machine doesn’t slow down for regular people. It runs them over.

This case also shows how family court turns into a war of attrition. Jonah is a teenager with no resources saying he’s been failed by the system his parents put him in. Bevin is fighting disclosure, fighting the judge, fighting the very idea that he owes support. Both sides are bleeding time, money, and peace. The kid who was adopted to be part of a family is now using that family’s divorce case to claw back support. The father who adopted him is now treating the court like an enemy.

That’s not justice. That’s wreckage.

I wrote 13 Chains because I lived the wreckage. I know what it’s like when the state decides your debt is worth more than your freedom. I know what it does to your head, your body, your ability to be a father. Watching a former governor go through the same contempt dance doesn’t make me happy - it makes me tired. Tired of a system that thinks threatening jail is the best way to get people to comply. Tired of litigation that lasts years while kids grow up without stability. Tired of the idea that if we just punish hard enough, families will magically fix themselves.

We need something better.

Real ability-to-pay hearings that actually look at what a person can reasonably give without destroying their life. Real alternatives to locking people up for paperwork or debt - wage assignments that work, mediation that isn’t a joke, support structures that help both parents instead of turning them into enemies. And for cases like this one - where an adult child is seeking retroactive support after years of estrangement and serious allegations on both sides - we need clearer rules and faster resolution instead of dragging everyone through years of hell.

Because here’s the truth this case proves: the child support machine doesn’t care if you used to be governor. It doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, Black or white, powerful or invisible. Once you’re in it, the chains feel the same. They just use different lengths of rope depending on how hard you can fight.

Matt Bevin is finding that out right now. I found it out thirteen times. Thousands of fathers are finding it out every single day.

The only way out is to change the system. Not patch it. Not threaten more jail. Change it.

That’s what 13chains.com is for. That’s what the book is for. That’s what this fight has always been for.

Whether you’re the guy who used to run Kentucky or the guy who used to drive a cab in New Jersey… the chains don’t discriminate.

Time to break them for good.

Stay unbreakable,

Robert Bulka