Hayden Kilbourne's mugshot. (Laurel County Correctional Center)Hayden Kilbourne is a Kentucky State Police trooper, but he’s not on patrol these days.That’s because Kilbourne, 26, is under indictment for felony assault and misdemeanor terroristic threatening after he allegedly tased, beat and threatened to kill a man during an arrest in Carroll County on July 28 last year. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.Kentucky State Police Commissioner Phillip Burnett wanted to fire Kilbourne just days after the incident, but Kilbourne took the rare step of requesting a hearing before a state police trial board. The trial board, a panel of troopers appointed by the commissioner, decided instead to suspend Kilbourne for six months without pay.Now, Kilbourne is back to work in the state police technical services division in Frankfort, installing equipment in troopers’ cruisers or managing records, while getting paid more than $67,000 a year as he awaits trial.Kilbourne, who was hired as a state police cadet in August 2020, did not respond to several requests for comment on this report. No trial date has been set, and the next hearing in his case is scheduled for January 27. If convicted on the assault charge, he could face up to 10 years in prison.He’s not the only Kentucky State Police trooper to face criminal charges in recent years.Robert Moster III was charged with child abuse after he allegedly kicked an 8-year-old in August. His case was dismissed. Daniel Forbis faces felony theft and abuse of public trust charges after he was indicted earlier this year for allegedly stealing $17,000 worth of ammunition while working on Gov. Andy Beshear’s security detail.Jeremy Elliotte, Derek Lovett and Michael Howell were indicted in federal court in 2022 for civil rights violations. Elliotte was sentenced to six months in prison. Lovett and Howell were acquitted. And Thomas Czartorski pleaded guilty to perjury after he lied under oath about beating a man with a flashlight in 2020.Kilbourne was also cited by a Somerset police officer in December 2023 for driving 104 miles per hour in a 55 mile-per-hour zone in Pulaski County. According to the traffic citation, Kilbourne told the officer that he was “running late to a doctor’s appointment.” The case was dismissed last March.Robert Anthony Kidd, the man Kilbourne allegedly tased, beat and threatened to kill in Carroll County last year, has filed a federal lawsuit against Kilbourne and Jake Noel, another trooper who was at the scene.A July 1, 2024, status report by both sides in the lawsuit said Kilbourne had been offered a plea agreement to resolve his state criminal charges, and that the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Kentucky also “had indicated an intent to pursue federal charges for the same incident.”Kilbourne’s lawyers requested a plea agreement offer “that would jointly resolve both the state and federal interest in this matter,” and were awaiting a response, according to the report.A December 2 status report filed in the lawsuit said negotiations to resolve the state charges “are still ongoing.”The current state of those negotiations could not be determined.Gabrielle Dudgeon, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Lexington, said she is “not allowed to comment on any potential ongoing investigations.”A spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office, which is prosecuting the criminal charges against Kilbourne, said the office could not discuss the case.The chaseHere’s how the events unfolded, according to more than 30 interviews and a review of hundreds of pages of court documents by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting.On that morning in July 2023, 20-year-old Robert Kidd was driving a stolen Buick SUV with Kilbourne and other law enforcement officials giving chase through several counties at speeds sometimes exceeding 100 miles per hour. The vehicle pursuit finally ended near Carrollton when police used a spike strip to deflate the tires on Kidd’s car.Kidd then fled through a wooded area. What happened when Kilbourne and Noel caught up with him is a matter of significant dispute.Kidd admits in his federal lawsuit that he ran from the two troopers. But while he was attempting to escape, the lawsuit states, Kilbourne made “multiple threats” toward Kidd, “including threatening to kill him and telling him that he was ‘fucked’ when Kilbourne caught him.”After Kidd stopped and raised his hands to surrender, Kilbourne shot Kidd in the back with a taser, according to the lawsuit. And when Kidd fell to the ground, his lawsuit claims, Kilbourne struck him eight times with his baton and again threatened to kill him.Kidd “suffered a broken front tooth, lacerations, contusions, and swelling on his head, face, arms, and body, received approximately six or seven stitches to his upper lip, and suffered and continues to suffer severe emotional trauma and mental anguish,” according to the lawsuit.Noel did nothing to intervene, according to Kidd’s lawsuit. Instead, Noel “stood by with his taser drawn on Kidd and provided cover for Kilbourne while Kilbourne beat Kidd with his baton,” the lawsuit states.Kilbourne’s version of events, contained in his response to Kidd’s lawsuit, is that he used just enough force to subdue Kidd and take him into custody. Kilbourne admitted that he used a taser and baton strikes, but only when Kidd “fled from police and actively resisted lawful arrest.”Once Kidd complied with troopers’ commands to place his hands behind his back and was handcuffed, Kilbourne said in his response to the lawsuit, he stopped “all use of force.”Kidd’s “own actions caused his injuries,” Kilbourne said.The arrest was recorded on state police body cameras, but the footage is not yet a matter of public record. Citing the pending criminal prosecution against Kilbourne, the state police denied a request by KyCIR for a copy of the footage.Following the traffic stop and his arrest, Kidd was charged with multiple offenses, including fleeing from police, criminal mischief, three counts of wanton endangerment, and receiving stolen property.Last June, he pleaded guilty to those six charges and was sentenced to three years in prison. He was released from custody in September, and currently is under supervision in Oldham County, according to state police.Kidd could not be reached for comment.On September 18, 2023, Kilbourne was indicted by a Carroll County grand jury on the charges of second-degree assault and third-degree terroristic threatening.State police said that in response to his involvement in the encounter with Kidd, Noel was required to receive eight hours of “remedial training.” Noel declined to comment for this report.To the trial boardFive days after the incident, State Police Commissioner Phillip Burnett notified Kilbourne that he intended to fire him. Kilbourne then turned to the state police trial board.Trial boards review cases involving officers accused by the commissioner of wrongdoing and who demand a hearing. The board can impose punishment ranging from a reprimand to a six-month suspension to dismissal from the agency.The trial board consists of the commissioner and a panel of 10 state police officers named by the commissioner. The commissioner then designates three to seven of those officers to hear the evidence in a particular case.The trial board in Kilbourne’s case consisted of seven officers. After a hearing on February 1, the trial board suspended Kilbourne for six months, rather than firing him as Burnett had recommended. Burnett had no legal right to appeal the trial board’s decision. Kilbourne could have done so, but chose not to.Kentucky State Police Commissioner Phillip Burnett Jr.(Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet)Burnett did not respond to several requests from KyCIR for comment. Lexington attorney Scott Miller, representing Kilbourne, declined to discuss the trial board proceedings or Kilbourne’s criminal case.After the trial board hearing concluded, Kilbourne served his six-month suspension. At his request, the trial board’s proceedings were conducted in a closed session, and details of what happened are not yet available to the public.KyCIR spoke with the seven trial board members, all of whom declined to discuss Kilbourne’s case.State police trial board hearings are relatively infrequent, The agency told KyCIR that there have only been two trial board proceedings, one of which was Kilbourne’s, since January 1, 2020.In the other case, the trial board voted in July 2023 to fire Trooper Jarred Perkins for dishonesty and insubordination.Overturning a commissioner’s recommendation, as the trial board did in Kilbourne’s case, also is unusual, according to several criminal-justice authorities familiar with the process.Richard Sanders, who served as state police commissioner from 2016 to 2019 and is now chief of the Jeffersontown police department, told KyCIR that he recalled only a few trial board cases during his tenure and that he could not think of a case when a trial board overturned the commissioner’s recommendation.“Not that I can remember,” Sanders said.