The Stoners were arraigned after a tumultuous morning in Jefferson County Circuit Court.
Ronnie and Donnie Stoner and a third man, Zachary Kilgore, were scheduled to be arraigned by Judge Julie Kaelin. But Kaelin recused herself just before the arraignment over a conflict. Kaelin was the defense attorney who represented Kilgore’s codefendant in a 2009 double-homicide case.
Four alleged survivors named in the indictment waited at the downtown Louisville courthouse for hours as prosecutors tried to find another judge to take the case. They landed on Judge Mitch Perry.
Kilgore did not appear, sparking a nationwide warrant for his arrest.
Ronnie and Donnie Stoner are longtime football coaches and educators for JCPS. Donnie was reassigned and eventually terminated from his role as a teacher and head coach of the duPont Manual High School football team after he was charged with sexually abusing a 17-year-old student in 2023.
Ronnie was reassigned months later from his role as Manual’s safety administrator and assistant football coach. He is still employed by JCPS in a role without contact with students.
Ronnie and Donnie Stoner arrived after noon for their arraignment in Perry’s courtroom. When they came out of the elevator, it was the first time most survivors had seen their alleged abusers in years.
“We were all very anxious. We had been here since 9:30, 9:45 and it was just very chaotic…going from courtroom to courtroom,” Alexis Crook said. Crook says both Ronnie and Donnie Stoner abused her from 2005 to 2007 when she was enrolled at Evangel Christian School.
Perry put the Stoners on home incarceration, saying he needed more information about the case before executing the grand jury warrant.
“I need to get some questions answered, I need to know more,” Perry said.
At the request of Donnie Stoner’s attorney Rob Eggert, Perry provided the brothers a security escort of several sheriff’s deputies as they left the courthouse.
The Stoners and Kilgore are scheduled to appear July 29 for a bond hearing.
The survivors and their supporters visibly balked at Perry’s decision to put the Stoners on home incarceration. Alyssa Foster, an alleged survivor of Ronnie Stoner, put her head in her hands and began to cry.
“Leaving here knowing that they’re going to go home and sit on their couch…for the rest of the week is the biggest slap in the face,” Foster told KyCIR.
Foster alleges Ronnie Stoner sexually abused her when she was a 13-year-old student at Newburg Middle School, where Stoner worked for years.
She was also frustrated that the brothers got a security escort.
“What about our safety?” Foster said, noting that Kilgore is now a fugitive with a violent background.
The women were also concerned that the judge allowed Ronnie Stoner to maintain contact with his own minor children.
The indictment charges Ronnie with sexually abusing his daughter Aryalle Stoner from the age of 11. Aryalle is now an adult, but she has a younger sister.
Rob Eggert, Donnie Stoner’s attorney, called the charges “as close to a political indictment as I’ve seen in a long time.”
