Carsen Richards, the 22-year-old touring bassist and music director for rising country artist Chase Matthew, was arrested on May 9, 2026, shortly after performing at the BBQ & Barrels festival in Owensboro, Kentucky and charged with multiple felony child sex crimes.
According to court records from Clark District Court in Winchester, Kentucky, Richards faces two counts of second-degree sodomy and two counts of incest involving a person under 18 by a person three or more years older. The charges stem from alleged incidents in December 2020 and December 2022 in Clark County.
The victim, who was 12 years old at the time of the first alleged incident and 14 during the second, has been diagnosed as autistic (Level 1), according to a criminal complaint filed by Winchester Police Department Detective Bob Mott. The victim’s mother reported the allegations to authorities on November 24, 2025, leading to a child advocacy center interview in Lexington on December 3, 2025.
Richards, of Hendersonville, Tennessee, was taken into custody by Owensboro Police Department officers around 9:40 p.m. Saturday as he exited the stage at the Owensboro Convention Center lawn, where Chase Matthew headlined the festival. He was booked into the Daviess County Detention Center at 10:34 p.m. and is being held on a $75,000 cash bond with a no-contact order regarding the alleged victim.
Owensboro police coordinated with Winchester authorities, who had obtained an arrest warrant on May 5. Officials noted that Richards was known to frequently carry firearms, prompting a deliberate plan to arrest him after the performance to minimize risk to the public in a crowded environment. He was unarmed at the time of arrest.
Chase Matthew promptly distanced himself from Richards, announcing his immediate removal from the band. In a statement released Monday, May 11, the artist expressed shock and condemnation:
“This situation has honestly been one of the most shocking and heartbreaking things I’ve ever experienced. When I first heard the allegations, I was sick to my stomach. I would never associate myself with a person I think could even be remotely capable of something like this, much less hire them to be on my team.
The reality is, you don’t always know what someone may be doing outside of your workplace, and nothing would have made me believe this was a possibility.
As of his arrest this past weekend, this individual was immediately removed from the band and is no longer associated with me or my team in any capacity. And I want to be very clear: I do not support or tolerate behavior of this kind whatsoever.
I am truly disturbed and disgusted by the details of these allegations. My heart breaks for anyone affected. Like you, I’m learning this information as it comes out publicly. I don’t know anything more than y’all know. This is an ongoing legal matter, and I trust that the legal system will go through the correct procedures to get to the bottom of this.”
Richards had been with Matthew’s touring band since November 2021.
The case remains ongoing, with Richards scheduled to appear in Clark District Court.
