BARDSTOWN, Ky. (WDRB) — Nick Houck appeared Thursday morning in Nelson Circuit Court with his new attorney for a review hearing in his perjury case.
Judge Charles Simms III and attorneys for Houck and the state discussed a change of venue for the trial in the case, which was set for Nov. 9.
Houck was arrested June 4 and charged with perjury. He's the brother of Brooks Houck, the man convicted last year of murdering Crystal Rogers.
At the time of his arrest, Kentucky State Police said Nick Houck "allegedly committed perjury between 2015 and 2023." According to his indictment, he "made a material false statement, which he did not believe, in an official proceeding, while under oath required or authorized by law."
Nick Houck entered the courtroom Thursday and walked up to take a seat in the second row of the gallery, right in front of Rogers' mother, Sherry Ballard. She quickly moved.
"They're evil. They're sick people," Ballard said after the hearing. "It doesn’t surprise me one bit that they would do that. ... I'm not sitting beside the man I believe murdered my husband. That's never going to happen. I'm very upset about this. I try to not let that family get to me. I'll be doggone if I'm going to sit beside them. That's not going to happen.”
During Thursday's hearing, Simms set another hearing for July 16 to discuss a possible change of venue.
Thursday's hearing came two weeks after Houck appeared for his arraignment without an attorney. Simms appointed a temporary public defender to stand in while Houck entered a not guilty plea.
Houck's new attorney, Michael Ferguson, of Bardstown, represented him Thursday morning. He declined to comment on the case after the hearing.
Prosecutors filed a motion June 12 in Nelson Circuit Court asking the court to amend the offense date listed in the indictment, calling the charge a clerical error. The court approved that amendment.
The amended court record now specifies the alleged perjury happened between July 15, 2015, and Aug. 16, 2023. The July 2015 date matches the day Houck was questioned by investigators shortly after Crystal Rogers disappeared. And the August 2023 date falls about a month before a grand jury indicted Brooks Houck on charges including complicity to murder and tampering with physical evidence in Rogers' disappearance.
Brooks Houck was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Rogers, who disappeared on July 3, 2015. Her body has never been found.
Nick Houck, a former Bardstown police officer, was fired in 2015 after being accused of interfering in the investigation. During Brooks Houck's murder trial, prosecutors described Nick Houck as an "unindicted co-conspirator."
Investigators have not publicly released what Nick Houck is accused of lying about.
After his arrest, he was booked into the Nelson County Jail and then transferred to the Hardin County Jail where he was released several hours later on a $25,000 bond.
'I have no idea why you guys are charging me with that'
At his arraignment, Nick Houck showed up without an attorney and said he didn't know why he was being charged with perjury. When his case was called, he told Simms his attorney hadn't arrived and stepped out to call him. When he returned to the courtroom, he told Simms the attorney wanted to "figure out what you guys are getting at before he kind of makes a decision."
"Is he your attorney or not?" Simms asked.
"He's not today but, I mean, he's gonna be," Nick Houck responded. "That's what I'm saying. We've talked several times, and he wants some information on the case to be able to make a decision."
He told Simms he's not sure why he's charged with perjury.
"Yeah, I've been charged with perjury and I have no idea why you guys are charging me with that," he said.
"I don't charge people with perjury," Simms said.
"I'm just saying the state police or whoever involved," Nick Houck responded.
Nick Houck was appointed a temporary public defender to represent him during his arraignment in Nelson County Thursday morning.
Simms appointed a temporary public defender to stand in as he entered Nick Houck's not guilty plea. He waived his right to have a reading of the indictment.
Former police chief who fired Nick Houck says arrest 'makes sense'
After Nick Houck's arrest, the former Bardstown police chief who fired him in 2015 said he wasn't surprised by it.
"I felt in my heart all these years they are going to get him on something," former Bardstown Police Chief Rick McCubbin told WDRB.
McCubbin said he worked with Nick Houck in the early years of the investigation into Rogers' disappearance and said, looking back, his lack of cooperation raised concerns.
"When I look back on it, I think, why was I surprised," McCubbin said. "He didn't want to cooperate, so it all makes sense once you step back and remove everything."
McCubbin ultimately terminated Nick Houck from the Bardstown Police Department after he refused what McCubbin described as a direct order to cooperate with investigators.
"I basically told him, 'You're going to sit in that chair, you're going to cooperate and that is a direct order,'" he said. "He failed to do that, and at that time I went to the then-mayor and said, 'He's got to go.'"
McCubbin said he believed Nick Houck's actions interfered with the investigation while Nick Houck was still a police officer.
"I, and most everyone that's been involved with it, believe that he has more to do with it than we see on the surface," McCubbin said.
McCubbin said Nick Houck is now facing the consequences of his own decisions.
"He chose his own path," McCubbin said. "It's nothing I did or the department did. He ultimately chose the path he took and he is paying the price still today."
Crystal Rogers' mother calls Nick Houck 'evil'
Sherry Ballard said Nick Houck's arrest was good news for her.
"I've been waiting for this day for a long time," Ballard said.
She said a mother's fight for justice never ends.
"I said, I will take what I can get, a day at a time," she said. "And I'm thrilled that he got arrested."
Rogers was last seen on July 3, 2015. The next day, her car was found on the side of the Bluegrass Parkway with her purse, phone and keys still inside. But there was no sign of the mother of five. Brooks Houck was quickly named the main person of interest because he was the last known person to see her alive when they were at his family farm the night of July 3. However, Brooks Houck was never arrested or charged until September of 2023.
Sherry Ballard believes the perjury charge is tied to her daughter's murder case rather than the investigation into her husband's death.
Tommy Ballard was shot and killed on family property in November 2016, about a year-and-a-half after his daughter disappeared. Prosecutor Shane Young said in court in October of 2023 that Nick Houck is under investigation for a gun he sold to an under cover agent that may have been the gun used to kill Tommy.
Years earlier, Nick Houck was suspended from the Bardstown Police Department in September 2015 and fired the following month after he was accused of interfering with the Rogers investigation.
This also isn't the first time Nick Houck has been accused of lying.
Nick Houck, while still a police officer, failed a polygraph examination related to Rogers' disappearance while maintaining he had no involvement in the case.
"Nick Houck as a person, he's not trustworthy," Sherry Ballard said. "He's evil."
She believes Nick Houck is nervous after his most recent arrest.
Rosemary Houck before Nick Houck's arraignment on a perjury charge in Nelson Circuit Court on Thursday, June 18, 2026. (WDRB photo)
"I think this has taken a big toll, as it should," she said. "Because he doesn't know from day-to-day if he's going to be arrested for murder. Or what's around the corner for him."
No additional charges have been filed against him in connection with Rogers' disappearance or Tommy Ballard's death.
But during Brooks Houck's murder trial, prosecutors repeatedly referred to Nick Houck and his mother, Rosemary Houck, as unindicted co-conspirators.
"Honestly ... I would love to see the whole family behind bars. The sister, the brother, the mother," Sherry Ballard said.
As the case pushes forward, the painful loss of a daughter and a husband is still very real. But even after Brooks Houck's conviction and Nick Houck's arrest, Sherry Ballard said her mission remains unchanged.
"I can't change the way things are," she said. "I can push. And I will push 'til the day I die to find justice for Tommy and Crystal."
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