Former Christian County High School football coach and athletic director Steve Lovelace entered not guilty pleas to a pair of felony charges Wednesday in Christian County Circuit Court.
Lovelace appeared in court with his attorney David Bundrick of Paducah and waived the reading of his indictment.
Judge Andrew Self, who is an assistant football coach at Hopkinsville High School, then announced he was removing himself from the case due to his athletic relationship with Lovelace.
click to download audioThe case was assigned to Chief Circuit Judge John Atkins’ Division 2 court following Self’s recusal.
Lovelace was indicted by a grand jury last month on two counts of theft by failure to make required disposition of property which were the result of alleged incidents that occurred over a seven-year span between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2020.
He is charged with converting over $500 but less than $10,000 in funds or checks from the Christian County High School Football Booster Club and Quarterback Club for his own personal use in the lesser charge.
The more serious charge alleges Lovelace unlawfully converted more than $10,000 in cash or checks that belonged to Christian County High School for his own personal use.
Lovelace resigned as Christian County High School football coach in March less than two weeks after the school system announced that he was no longer the athletic director at the school.
He was 100-67 in 14 seasons as Christian County head coach and was named the 2008 Kentucky Coach of the Year after leading the Colonels to the Class 5A state title game. Christian County returned to the 5A state championship in 2010.
Lovelace will return to court on August 11 at 8:30 for a pretrial conference.
