A former daycare worker at First United Methodist Church in Hopkinsville charged with child abuse appeared for a pretrial conference in Christian Circuit Court Wednesday morning.
Nina Morgan and her defense attorney, Michael Thompson, appeared before Judge John Atkins. Thompson advised Judge Atkins he doesn’t have any discovery because he was retained Wednesday morning before the hearing. Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Jared Smith asked Judge Atkins to continue the case until June 3 to make sure all discovery is complete.
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Judge Atkins granted the continuance. The other three co-defendants, former daycare worker Allison Simpson, former church pastor Paige Williams and former daycare director Abby Leach, also had their pretrial conferences continued until June 3.
Morgan is charged with two counts of first-degree criminal abuse – child under 12 years. Simpson is charged with 30 counts of first-degree criminal abuse – child under 12 years, and Williams and Leach are facing one count each of first-degree complicity criminal abuse – child under 12 years.
Simpson was initially indicted by the Christian County Grand Jury on April 12. The charges stem from an investigation in which Hopkinsville Police reported Simpson was captured on video subjecting an 8-month old and 10-month old to cruel care and confinement on January 10, 2019 at the daycare at First United Methodist Church.
Williams and Leach were indicted by the grand jury in August 2019. According to the indictments, the two women “intentionally breached their legal duty to protect at least seven children who were being cared for at the daycare”. The indictments also allege “their breach of legal duty placed the children in a situation that might cause serious physical injury, torture, cruel confinement or cruel punishment at the hands of Simpson.”
In December during a pretrial conference, Commonwealths Attorney Rick Boling advised Judge Atkins that another co-defendant, 52-year old Nina Morgan, was also indicted on December 6th in connection to this case.
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