BENTON, Ky. – The Murray man whose case in Calloway District Court was dismissed earlier this week for improper venue now faces sodomy and sexual abuse charges in Marshall County.
On Wednesday morning, Calloway District Judge Randall Hutchens dismissed the case in his court against Stephen Gray, a 71-year-old Calloway County resident charged with first-degree sodomy (victim under 12 years of age) and first-degree sexual abuse (victim under 12 years of age, two counts each, after testimony at his preliminary hearing revealed that the alleged crimes actually took place at a previous residence of Gray’s in Marshall County.
After the hearing, Gray was taken back to the Calloway County Detention Center and released. That evening, Marshall District Judge Jack Telle issued a warrant, and Gray was arrested by the Calloway County Sheriff’s Office at his New Concord residence. While Gray was held on a $100,000 cash bond on his charges in Calloway, Telle set his bond in the new case at $50,000 cash.
The complaint warrant filed in Marshall District Court Wednesday night was also written by Calloway County Sheriff’s Office deputy Nicholas Dues and is, by and large, the same document he filed in Calloway County on Jan. 21; it does, however, provide a few more details.
The only substantive change between the charging documents is the range of dates when the alleged abuse occurred. The original complaint warrant filed in Calloway District Court stated that the alleged abuse took place between March 1, 2022, and March 1, 2023. In the Marshall County, the complaint warrant alleges the abuse occurred between Aug. 1, 2023, and Aug. 1, 2024.
While the connection between Gray’s daughter and the victims was ambivalent in the Calloway case, the Marshall County complaint identifies her as the victims’ mother.
This is not the first time Gray has been charged with sexual abuse in Marshall County. In 2016, Gray was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of third-degree sexual abuse (victim under 12 years of age) in addition to 79 counts of possession and four counts of distributing pornographic matter portraying sexual performance by a minor. The victims in those cases were also his grandchildren. He served five years in prison and was released in November 2021.
Gray will be arraigned in Marshall District Court on Monday, Feb. 3, at 1 p.m.
Individuals charged with crimes are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court of law.
