Judge orders ticket information released
Court's lawyer says Schererville town judge will comply
NWI Times
May 03, 2003
nwitimes.com/news/state-and-regional/judge-orders-ticket-information-released/article_33635052-a38c-56fa-b0f6-35bd7122dc08.html
CROWN POINT -- A Lake Superior Court judge on Friday ordered the Schererville town judge to turn over records that a political opponent says may be evidence of the illegal redirection of thousands of dollars in state and county court revenues to Schererville's town coffers.
Judge John Pera ordered Judge Deborah Riga to make available copies of traffic tickets that may have been improperly reclassified by Riga from state to local infractions which, in turn, would divert the money to the town from the state.
The Indiana State Board of Accounts conducted a routine audit of the Town Court's financial books for the years 2000 and 2001 and issued a report in December taking the judge to task for reclassifying eight traffic tickets Schererville police issued.
The drivers originally were charged with state infractions, which would require all court fines and fees to be split among state, county and local government treasuries. Riga reclassified them as violations of town ordinances and all the money paid by the drivers stayed home in Schererville's bank accounts.
The State Board of Accounts demanded the court return $950 for those eight tickets.
Frank R. Martinez III, a Highland attorney and campaign official for one of Riga's political opponents, sued Riga to obtain court records he believes may prove his case.
Riga's attorney, T. Edward Page, said Martinez was welcome to the documents all along and that any belief to the contrary was due to "a failure to communicate."
"The court is open on Monday, and I will call attorney Martinez over the weekend and let him know he is welcome to examine whatever records he wishes," Page said. "This was more a failure to communicate than a desire not to provide the documents requested."
If Martinez gets the tickets on Monday, he will have little time to examine them to determine if Riga's problem is widespread, as the primary election is Tuesday.
She is running for re-election in the May 6 Democratic primary and is opposed by attorneys Randy A. Godshalk, Benjamin W. Murphy and Kenneth L. Anderson. Martinez is Anderson's campaign treasurer.
Although he was pleased that he prevailed Friday, Martinez said he is "very disappointed in that I made these requests on Feb. 14 and again on Feb. 27, and here it is in May, and I have to go to court to order public records be released from a judge."
Page said it was not that Riga did not want to release the records, it was that the tickets could not be found.
"We don't know whether or not they are there. They may have been moved as part of the State Board of Accounts audit of tickets. We have been unable to locate the tickets," Page said.
He said the court has been able to reassemble copies of the tickets requested by Martinez through duplicate copies kept by Schererville police.
"I am told they have been obtained and will be available for inspection," Page said.
Even though the State Board of Accounts audit turned up only the eight tickets, Martinez said he has spoken with former Town Court employees who say "there are many, many more such tickets."
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