State police look into missing court records
NWI Times
May 31, 2016
CROWN POINT — State police have begun looking into why the Lake Station City Court failed to report license restrictions to the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
Indiana State Police First Sgt. Al Williamson said Monday he has assigned Indiana State Police Detectives Chris Campione and John Holman to investigate drunken driving cases that were improperly handled between 2008 and 2012.
Lake County Prosecutor Bernard A. Carter requested the investigation last month after discovering the convictions and notices of suspension of a number of cases heard in Lake Station City Court weren't submitted downstate for inclusion in the permanent driving histories of the defendants.
Carter said his office uncovered the Lake Station City Court problem last month during an investigation into why the City Court failed to submit to the BMV a 2011 reckless driving conviction for Randolph L. “Randy” Palmateer, 37, business manager for the Northwestern Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council.
Carter said his office would have more vigorously prosecuted Palmateer's arrest at a Hammond sobriety checkpoint earlier this year if it had known it wasn't his first offense. Carter said the failure to submit convictions may involve hundreds of cases.
Carter and Mayor Christopher Anderson, who was Lake Station city judge at the time, said earlier that Miranda Brakley, clerk of that city's court from 2008 to 2012 and a stepdaughter of former Mayor Keith Soderquist, was responsible for transmitting convictions and driving restrictions to the BMV over that period and failed to do so.
Brakley already is awaiting sentencing for a guilty plea in January to embezzling about $16,000 from the Lake Station City Court. Soderquist, the former mayor and Brakley's stepfather, has pleaded guilty to trying to cover up the theft by trying to replace the missing money with other funds.
Thomas Vanes, a Merrillville attorney representing Brakley, said Monday his client, whose family has been feuding with Anderson, is being made a scapegoat without any proof. He said, "Why don't they look at all the courts? Why just Lake Station?"
Vanes said former Mayor Soderquist complained to Carter's staff four years ago about how drunken driving plea bargains were being handled in Lake Station City Court, including Palmateer's. Carter said Soderquist complained only about Anderson's performance as a judge, not about missing conviction records.
Vanes said Brakley spoke to the U.S. Attorneys office and the FBI about missing records, but said federal authorities only seemed interested in pursuing allegations against Soderquist and her.
Carter said earlier this week he is concerned the reporting failure could involve hundreds of drivers who should have had their driving privileges suspended.
State law requires courts to mail convictions for serious moving violations to the BMV, which assesses points for such convictions that remain on an individual’s driving record for two years and can result in license suspensions and higher insurance rates for the drivers.
The investigation is an echo of a federal probe, called Operation Bar Tab, which focused 30 years ago on allegations of fixing drunken driving tickets in Lake County Court in Crown Point.
Two county judges, a county clerk and a deputy prosecutor, bailiffs and lawyers were among several convicted of making court records disappear, so drunken drivers wouldn't receive points on their driving records.
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