Tag: indiana

Civil Forfeiture Defendants Have the Right to a Jury Trial, Says the Indiana Supreme Court

Civil forfeiture defendants in Indiana have the right to a jury trial, the state’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled last week, bolstering basic due process protections for those who have assets seized by law enforcement. 

Before the court was the case of Alucious Kizer, from whom police seized $2,435 in cash after a traffic stop where they found drugs in his vehicle. Civil forfeiture allows law enforcement to take people’s assets if the government suspects them of criminal activity. Kizer moved to challenge his forfeiture at trial, which the Indiana Court of Appeals rejected, ruling that such defendants “are not entitled to trial by jury.” 

“The State insists that Kizer has no right to a jury trial because civil forfeitures pursuant to Indiana’s drug forfeiture laws are a special statutory procedure intended exclusively for trial by the court,” Justice Christopher M. Goff of the Indiana Supreme Court summarized in an opinion published October 31. “Kizer disagrees, arguing that the State’s theory would effectively deprive Hoosiers of a jury trial when filing suit under any modern statutory scheme.”

The state’s highest court ruled in favor of Kizer. “The historical record—consisting of statutes and judicial decisions reflecting contemporary practice—strongly suggests that Indiana continued the common-law tradition of trial by jury in actions for the forfeiture of property,” wrote Goff. The seizure of assets suspected to be used in the commission of a crime, he added, is “an essentially legal action that triggers the right” to a jury trial. 

That prosecutors in Indiana have successfully denied civil forfeiture defendants this due process, and were close to making it official in the courts, is a reflection of how abusive the practice can be. It’s also unsurprising and shows how governments across the U.S. can deter defendants from challenging such seizures, even when those people haven’t been charged with a crime.

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Accused murderer’s lawyers blame killing of 2 teens on ‘ritualistic sacrifice’ by white nationalists

Attorneys for a man charged with the murders of two Indiana women are claiming the victims died in a “ritualistic sacrifice” conducted by white nationalists, NBC5 reported.

Richard Allen’s lawyers said several white nationalists practicing the religion Odinism “ritualistically sacrificed” victims Abigail Williams and Liberty German in Delphi, Indiana back in 2017. Evidence found at the crime scene included symbols “in the form of runes made up of sticks and fashioned with tree branches,” according to NBC5’s report.

Defense attorneys said the evidence was left behind by Odinites, who practice a racist version of the Norse pagan religion known as Asatru.

“According to the filings, detectives previously obtained information that connected two groups of men who practiced Odinism to the murders, one in or near Delphi and another that lived in Rushville,” NBC5’s report stated.

“Writing in the court documents, defense attorneys stated that a letter regarding the possible connection between the killings and the group practicing Odinisim in Rushville was withheld by the prosecution. The attorneys accused prosecutors, as well as multiple law enforcement officers, from hiding information about the Odinist connections to the murders, the documents revealed.”

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INDIANA JAIL LET MAN WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA STARVE TO DEATH IN SOLITARY, LAWSUIT ALLEGES

On July 20, 2021, apartment managers entered 29-year-old Indiana resident Joshua McLemore’s home, found him confused, incoherent, and nude on the floor, and had McLemore transported to a Seymour, Indiana, hospital. McLemore’s mother had called her son’s living complex, worried he could have been having a psychotic episode. At the hospital, McLemore grabbed a nurse’s hair and the Seymour Police Department arrested him on battery charges.

At the Jackson County Jail, McLemore, who had schizophrenia, was stripped naked and thrown into solitary confinement in what was known as “Padded Cell 7,” a small room without toilet access.

Surveillance footage over 21 days shows him screaming; rocking back and forth; licking the walls; smearing his feces and urine all over the floor; violently shoving a plastic bottle into his rectum; throwing his food on the ground; and eating the styrofoam food trays that made their way through the thin slot at the cell door.

According to the lawsuit, he lost 45 pounds in less than a month. Jail staff rarely checked in on him. Jackson County Sheriff’s Office (JCSO) employees occasionally placed McLemore in restraints and wheeled him into a shower as JCSO forced other imprisoned people to clean the excrement in his cell. On August 8, a guard named Beverly texted her supervisor, “Just bathed him. And he can’t hold his hands, legs, anything. He’s dead weight.”

In the footage, McLemore’s body visibly shrinks over weeks until he doesn’t have the strength to hold his head up.

“Get up, buddy,” a corrections officer asks. But he can’t. In one portion of the footage, a female guard sprays him with liquid soap and hoses him down so that he does not smell before EMS comes.

On August 8, jail officials noticed that McLemore—visibly emaciated and unable to hold up his body—likely needed medical care. But medical officials were unable to save him. According to a suit, doctors listed McLemore’s cause of death as “multiple organ failure due to refusal to eat or drink with altered mental status due to untreated schizophrenia.”

McLemore’s family alleges that at least 20 people, including Sheriff Rick Meyer, had access to roughly 400 hours of footage of McLemore wasting away in his cell. Edwin Budge, the family’s attorney, said he could not understand why no one called 911 earlier.

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Indiana’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles is caught collecting and selling personal data

Indiana’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) has been caught selling drivers’ personal information without their consent and without the option to opt out. Last year alone, the BMV made around $25 million from selling personal information, according to WRTV.

Asked if the BMV sells personal information, a BMV employee said to WRTV: “No. Well, you’re not supposed to. Can’t tell you for sure what they do, but they’re not supposed to!”

Though the employees might not be aware of the practice, an investigation by WRTV found that the Indiana BMV does sell personal information and the practice is legal. The BMV can sell personal information like your name, date of birth, past and current addresses, license plate number, make and model of your vehicle, VIN, date of purchase, license type, and your driver’s record.

In the past decade (2012 to 2022) the BMV made over $237 million from selling drivers’ personal information. It sells the personal information to lawyers, bail bond companies, insurance companies, private investigators, debt collection companies, recovery agents, law enforcement agencies, security guards, auto dealers, tow companies, school corporations, and mobile home parks.

The BMV refused an on-camera interview. However, in an emailed statement, a spokesperson said: “Data is only available to qualified entities who meet the eligibility and use requirements in Indiana Code § 9-14-13-7 or § 9-14-13-8.

“Consumers do not have the option to opt out at this time,” they added.

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Cops Wake Innocent Man, Sleeping in His Own Driveway, Fill Him With Holes

On New Year’s Eve, Anthony Maclin, 24, was asleep in his car in his grandmother’s driveway. He had committed no crime, was not suspected of a crime, and harmed no one. However, none of this was a defense against three police officers surrounding his car, firing for seven straight seconds, and filling Mclin with holes.

On the night they filled Maclin with holes, police were responding to a call about an unidentified man sleeping in a car in a woman’s driveway. Maclin was in a rental car with Florida plates, and his own grandma called police because she didn’t recognize the car — a mistake she now direly regrets.

According to police, they attempted to wake Maclin, who was asleep with his legally owned and registered handgun in his lap. Instead of simply taking cover and waking him from a distance with a police loudspeaker, officers surrounded the car with guns drawn as if Maclin was a wanted murder suspect.

It is not a crime to sleep in your car with a gun on your lap in Indiana. In fact, Indiana has laws on the books that allow you to defend yourself on your own property — including from police officers.

Nevertheless, these cowboy cops surrounded the car, guns drawn until Maclin began moving around; at which point they attempted to execute him.

Never once in the body camera footage below do you hear officers say, “drop the gun,” or “he has a gun,” or even the word “gun.” This is likely due to the fact that Maclin never touched the gun in his lap and the trigger-happy cops opened fire on him out of sheer fear.

Once she realized that it was her grandson in the vehicle, Vickie Driver became hysterical. “That’s my grandson,” she said, immediately regretting the call to police. “I’m so sorry.”

“I didn’t want to wake you guys up,” Maclin said as he lay on the ground bleeding out after being shot. Miraculously, Maclin lived. He was hospitalized for weeks and has undergone six surgeries.

He has not been charged with a crime.

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Murdered Delphi teens were intended victims of ‘botched’ child sex kidnap plot, cops believe – as investigators dig up DEAD CAT to match hairs found on girls to alleged killer’s pet

Murdered Delphi teenagers Liberty German and Abigail Williams were victims of a botched kidnapping plot hatched by members of a local pedophile ring.

This is just one of a host of disturbing new details and allegations that can be exclusively revealed by DailyMail.com – including gruesome details about how the girls died, and that police dug up the prime suspect’s dead cat, in an effort to match hairs found on their bodies.

The revelations come just two weeks after authorities released a redacted version of the probable cause affidavit that led to Richard Allen’s arrest.

Allen, 50, was charged on two counts of murder on October 28, five years after 14-year-old Libby and 13-year-old Abby were found dead in Delphi, Indiana, on February 13, 2017.  

DailyMail.com has learned that, shortly after his arrest, one of Allen’s neighbors recalled seeing police digging in his yard.

Now, DailyMail.com has been told they were digging up the family’s dead cat, whose hair proved a match for the samples found on one of the victims.

Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland has openly stated that he believes ‘Allen is not the only actor involved in this.’ 

And while Allen has not been charged with kidnapping, prosecutors have alleged he attempted it.

Now sources close to the investigation have claimed that Allen was acting with at least two other men and was involved in a child sex ring.

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Cop Found Guilty After Video Showed Him Savagely Torture Handcuffed Man & Cover It Up

 In 2020, a federal grand jury returned a 12-count indictment against three very bad cops – officers Joseph Chase Winkle, Jeremy Gibson, and sergeant Joseph Krejsa of the Muncie Police Department for their roles in using excessive force and attempting to cover up the misconduct. Video from the officers’ body cameras was crucial in securing the charges.

The indictment charges Winkle with nine felonies, Gibson with one felony offense, and Krejsa with two felony offenses. Now, nearly two years later, and Winkle has pleaded guilty to 11 counts while Gibson has pleaded to one. Krejsa remains on paid leave.

“According to the superseding indictment, Winkle’s actions included kicking, punching, knee striking, and using a taser on arrestees without justification, and resulted in bodily injury to the arrestees,” a news release from the US Attorney’s Office read.

The maximum penalty for the deprivation-of-rights offenses is 10 years in prison and the maximum penalty for false report offenses is 20 years of imprisonment, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

According to the charges, one of the victims suffered serious injuries from Winkle’s attack and another was knocked unconscious.

Body camera video from one of the arrests shows Winkle and another officer handcuffing a compliant man before deploying a taser on him causing him to writhe in pain. As the handcuffed man squirms in agony, the officer viciously attacked him with fists, tasers, and knee strikes.

Gibson was involved in similar attacks and is accused of depriving victims of their right to be free from excessive force by stomping on them and delivering multiple knee strikes.

Krejsa sat back and watched his two subordinates beat their victims and helped them cover it up afterward.

As RTV6 reported at the time, on one occasion, Krejsa minimized the level of force used by Winkle during one arrest, and, on another occasion, falsely represented that a different Muncie Police Department sergeant cleared Winkle of his use of force when it was actually Krejsa who conducted that review.

In other words, they investigated themselves and found they did nothing wrong.

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‘She wanted to choke us’: 5th grade teacher arrested after admitting to having ‘kill list’ of students and staff, police say

A fifth grade teacher has been arrested after informing one of her students that she had a “kill list” of children and colleagues, according to police.

On Wednesday, fifth grade teacher Angelica Carrasquillo-Torres reportedly told a student about a kill list she made that included students and staff at a school in East Chicago, Indiana.

“At approximately 12:45 p.m. a 5th grade student told his/her counselor that their 5th grade teacher made comments to him/her about killing herself, students, and staff at St. Stanislaus School,” East Chicago Police Department said in a statement. “The teacher further told the student that she has a list and that he/she was on the bottom of that list.”

The student involved – Portia Jones – told WLS-TV, “I’m really, like, scared and worried. She said she wanted to choke us and she wanted to kill herself.”

Jones told WBBM-TV, “She said that she wanted to kill her middle school friends, her high school friends, and half of her family.”

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Serial Killer Known As The ‘I-65 Killer’ Identified After 30 Years

In 1987, 41-year-old Vicki Heath was working at the Super 8 Motel just off I-65 in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, in order to make some extra money. She had recently gotten engaged, and was looking forward to this new chapter in her life as her two kids were reaching adulthood. That all tragically ended on February 21, 1987, when police received a call about a “complete mess” in the lobby of the motel. The caller worried that the front desk clerk was missing. Police arrived and found Heath’s body behind a nearby dumpster.

Two more women – Margaret “Peggy” Gill and Jeanne Gilbert – were killed two years later, each while working at different Days Inn motels in Indiana. A final woman, referred to only as Jane Doe, was sexually assaulted at the Columbus, Indiana, Days Inn in 1990.

More than 30 years went by without police being able to charge a suspect, whom they referred to as either the “Days Inn Killer” or the “I-65 Killer,” since the motels were off the highway.

On Tuesday, however, Indiana State Police (ISP) announced that they had finally identified the serial killer as Harry Edward Greenwell, who died in 2013 at the age of 68. He had been living in New Albin, Iowa and had an “extensive criminal history ranging from 1963 to 1998,” the ISP announced.

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Indiana Business Offering Pole Dancing Classes for Children as Young as SEVEN

An Indiana business is offering pole dancing lessons for children as young as seven-years-old.

The business, Tiffs Pole Fitness Inc., claims that pole dancing is not just for strippers, but is now an “international sport.”

A disturbing flyer for the classes features a likeness of Disney’s Rapunzel hanging upside down on a pole in what appears to be lingerie.

The owner, Tiffany Huebner, says that children must wear “mid/short shorts” and a tank top to the classes.

In a Facebook post, Huebner wrote “thank you to those who have shown your support for my Kids Pole Classes! I know that it’s going to take time for everyone to drop the stigma of “it’s a stripper pole” & understand that pole is an international sport now. I have patience & hope for our future generations of pole olympians & want to share an example with the public of what an international pole sport competition for kids looks like.”

They included a video of a nine year old pole dancing in a bikini.

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