Kentucky Attorney General’s Office granted $1.4 million for sexual assault investigations

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WAVE) - Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear announced Thursday his office would be receiving a federal grant to help investigate sexual assault cold cases.

Beshear said the $1.4 million, three-year grant from the Department of Justice will go toward his sexual assault cold case unit. It's the second of its kind to the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office.

After a $3 million grant in 2017, the office hired an investigator with Kentucky State Police and created the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative Task force. Beshear said that helped clear up cases by testing sexual assault forensic exam kits; some that had gone untested for years.

This time around, the grant will allow an officer to be added to the Louisville Metro Police Department, freeing up time and efforts across the state.

"Nearly half of the kits that we have tested are from Jefferson County," Beshear said, "and so what it allows us to do is have a resource where it is most needed and it will free up our other investigator inside the cold case unit to focus on those cases outside of Louisville."

Beshear says Kentucky is now one of only two states that has tested all of its backlogged kits.

Copyright 2019 WAVE 3 News. All rights reserved.