Former Bardstown police officer Nick Houck was arrested on June 4, 2026, and charged with first-degree perjury in connection with the Crystal Rogers investigation, marking the first criminal charge he has faced despite more than a decade of scrutiny. The Nelson County grand jury indictment alleges that Houck, 46, lied under oath during official proceedings tied to the disappearance and death of Rogers, whose boyfriend was Houck’s brother Brooks. He pleaded not guilty and faces one to five years in prison if convicted.
The Charge and What It Alleges
Kentucky State Police detectives served the indictment warrant on Houck on June 4, 2026. The charge is first-degree perjury, a Class D felony under Kentucky law that carries a sentence of one to five years.
According to KSP, the false statements at issue were made under oath between July 15, 2015, and August 2023. That window covers almost the entire span of the Crystal Rogers investigation, from the days immediately after her July 3, 2015 disappearance through the years leading up to Brooks Houck’s murder indictment. Investigators have not publicly identified which specific proceeding or piece of testimony forms the basis of the charge.
Two former Bardstown Police Department figures have pointed to what they view as the likely source. Former Chief Rick McCubbin and former lead detective Jonathan Snow have both cited Houck’s grand jury testimony from early July 2015 and his refusal to cooperate with investigators. Snow said investigators “very much suspected that he was not telling the truth during his grand jury testimony.”
Bond, Arraignment, and Next Court Date
Houck posted a $25,000 bond and was released from custody under a dusk-to-dawn curfew. He appeared for arraignment on June 18, 2026, in Nelson County, where a public defender entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf. The judge set July 2, 2026, as the next court date to schedule pretrial and trial proceedings.
Why Investigators Focused on Nick Houck
The perjury charge arrived after years in which Houck sat close to the center of the investigation without ever being charged. He was a Bardstown police officer when Crystal Rogers vanished on July 3, 2015. Within three months, his law enforcement career was over.
McCubbin suspended him in September 2015 and fired him in October after Houck refused a direct order to cooperate with investigators working the Rogers case. McCubbin later testified that he told Houck to “sit in that chair” and cooperate, and Houck refused. Around the same time, an FBI polygraph examiner asked Houck whether he knew where Rogers was and whether he was hiding information about what had happened to her. Houck failed. The reviewing agent told McCubbin the results raised “grave concerns.” By October 2015, Houck had been officially named a suspect.
Cell phone records introduced during Brooks Houck’s 2025 murder trial showed Nick Houck’s phone was powered off from 11 p.m. on July 2, 2015, until 1:47 p.m. on July 4, the window surrounding Rogers’ disappearance. On July 3, he told his girlfriend he was helping his brother with “something” rather than helping her move as they had planned. Police who searched his patrol cruiser after the disappearance found a blanket in the trunk, and a recorded conversation between Brooks and their mother, Rosemary, suggested both were concerned the blanket might be discovered.
Prosecutors designated Nick Houck and Rosemary Houck as unindicted co-conspirators during Brooks Houck’s trial. Brooks was convicted of murder and tampering with physical evidence on July 8, 2025, and sentenced to life in prison, with parole eligibility after 18 years. Nick, until his June 2026 arrest, had never been charged with anything.
The Grand Jury Recordings and the Crystal Rogers Act
One reason Nick Houck was not charged earlier involves a separate allegation that never became a case. Prosecutors alleged that multiple Houck family members, including Nick, secretly recorded grand jury proceedings using small hidden recorders, and that the FBI later found the recordings inside a jacket in a closet during a search of Rosemary Houck’s farm. Special Prosecutor Shane Young told the court he had practiced law for 25 years and had never heard of anyone recording a grand jury. Prosecutors believed the recordings were used to keep family members’ stories consistent.
No one was charged over the recordings. The underlying offense, contempt of court, is a misdemeanor with a one-year statute of limitations in Kentucky, and the recordings surfaced years after they were made. Governor Andy Beshear signed House Bill 305, known as the Crystal Rogers Act, on April 13, 2026, extending the statute of limitations for secretly recording grand jury proceedings to ten years. The law is not retroactive to the earlier conduct, and the perjury charge Houck now faces is distinct from the recording allegations.
Reaction From Former Colleagues
McCubbin, the chief who fired Houck in 2015, told reporters he believed the arrest was long overdue and that his decision to terminate Houck had been “the right decision.” Snow, the former lead detective, said he believes Houck was involved in Crystal Rogers’ murder and expressed hope that the perjury charge is “only the beginning.”
Whether additional charges follow will depend on evidence prosecutors have not yet made public. For now, the case against Nick Houck is a single Class D felony count, and the burden at trial will be to prove that statements he made under oath during an eight-year window were knowingly false.