Former sheriff's trial set for May
GREENCASTLE -- Former Putnam County Sheriff Mark Frisbie was in Putnam County Superior Court Tuesday, where his attorney Darrell Felling made a motion to withdraw a probable cause challenge in connection with Frisbie's Dec. 4 arrest.
Judge Denny Bridges granted Felling's request. Frisbie's trial remains set for May 25.
Frisbie was arrested after neing stopped by Indiana State Troopers on U.S. 231 in Greencastle. Court records said officers stopped Frisbie because he was driving erratically. He is charged with Class C misdemeanor operating while intoxicated, Class B misdemeanor public intoxication and Class A misdemeanor operating with at least .15 grams of alcohol in 210 liters. He was also cited for two infractions, open alcohol container and driving left of center.
At the time of his arrest, Frisbie had a blood alcohol content of .27, court records said. The legal limit in Indiana is .08.
Felling filed the probable cause challenge on Jan. 5. He alleged that Frisbie's arrest was based on a "questionable stop," and that there was "no evidence of impaired driving by the defendant or any observations of the defendant driving the motor vehicle on the date and place in question."
The state objected to the challenge on Jan. 7.
"We've completed our investigation, and would like to propose that you withdraw the motion for suppression," Felling said in court Tuesday.
Bridges ordered a presentatce investigation be conducted.
Frisbie, 39, was already on federal probation when he was arrested in December in connection with a November 2008 conviction for federal program theft. Amid allegations he had embezzled money from the sheriff's department, Frisbie resigned from his post as sheriff in August 2008 and was arrested several days later.
He spent two months in a federal penitentiary in Georgia, and then spent four months on home detention before beginning a two-year term of federal probation.
On Jan. 22, Frisbie was sentenced in United States District Court in Indianapolis to six months with Volunteers of America, a residential, non-profit human services organization based in Indiana, for violating the terms of his federal probation.
Frisbie is still fulfilling the terms of that sentence.