A federal judge said in a November 6 legal filing that former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis issued false responses about her assets in an inquiry to decide how she can repay her court-ordered payment of $565,000 toDavid Ermold and David Moore. Davis discriminated against the same-sex couple in 2015 when she illegally denied a marriage license to them, shortly after the US Supreme Court’s landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Moore and Ermold said that the list of personal assets Davis shared with the court after it ordered her to pay the aforementioned sum was “materially false.” Davis said she owned no real estate, made no large transfers, and was not a beneficiary of any estate, WKYT reported. However, the couple said they discovered certified records in Rowan County showing that she had inherited 50% of her mother’s estate as well as signed deeds in 2025 transferring that property to her family members.
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The men’s lawyers had asked Davis to produce documents “relating to any other real property you own, including deeds,” “reflecting transfers of property or assets made by you… in the past five years…exceeding $1,000,” and “reflecting any trusts or estate interests where you were designated as abeneficiary.”
In response, Davis submitted documents claiming that she “owns no real property” or any interest in real property, “made no transfers” that exceeded $2,000, and “is not designated as a beneficiary in any trust or estate.”
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Ermold and Moore’s attorneys said that after Davis’ mother died in 2025, she inherited three parcels of land worth more than $400,000 and then transferred the property’s deeds to other family members in order to conceal her assets and avoid having to liquidate them to pay the same-sex couple.
The plaintiffs had asked the court to void her property transfers, block further transfer of her assets, and apply her estate funds toward the payments she owes them. However, for now, the court has ordered her to explain her seemingly false statements about her assets.
“[Davis] does not deny the existence of these certified public records [showing the inheritance and transfer of her mother’s property],” the November 6 court filing from Magistrate Judge Edward B. Atkins said. “[She] does not address if or why these documents are outside of the scope of Plaintiffs’ requests, and gives no reason for not producing complete responses and documents.”
For the time being, Atkins has told Davis to issue correct answers about her assets to the couple’s lawyer and to explain by November 16 why she should not be sanctioned with a contempt of court penalty for misrepresenting her actual assets.
Davis, a conservative Christian who has been married four times, initially told the couple that she was acting “under God’s authority” when she refused to issue the license because she believes marriage is only between a man and a woman.
In 2022, a judgeruledthat Davis “cannot use her own constitutional rights [to religious freedom] as a shield to violate the constitutional rights of others while performing her duties as an elected official.”
Davis’s office denied marriage licenses multiple times to at least two same-sex couples. Eventually, the couples received them from a deputy clerk while Davis was jailed for five days for contempt of court. She was released when her staff issued the licenses on her behalf with Davis’ name removed from the documents. Shortly thereafter, Kentucky’s state legislature passed a law removing county clerks’ names from state marriage licenses altogether.
Nevertheless, at least one couplesued Davisfor the “mental anguish, emotional distress, humiliation, and reputation damages” that she allegedly caused.
Initially, then-Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) praised Davis as “an inspiration… to the children of America,” but when the court said the state government would have to pay for her legal fees, Bevin appealed to get Davis to pay the fees instead.
Davis — who waspregnant by her third husband while still married to her first—was represented by the anti-LGBTQ+ Liberty Counsel, aSouthern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated hate groupthat opposes any expansion of LGBTQ+ civil rights.
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