Mitchener's change of placement request denied

GREENCASTLE -- The request of a Roachdale woman to change the place of her incarceration from the Indiana Department of Correction to home detention has been denied.

Attorney Robert C. Perry filed the request on behalf of his client, Tammy Y. Mitchener, 33, on Nov. 4. Putnam County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Justin Long filed his objection to the request on Nov. 5.

Less than two weeks later, the request was denied by Putnam County Circuit Court Judge Matthew Headley.

Mitchener was convicted in July of stealing more than $56,000 from local special education cooperative Old National Trail, where she was employed as treasurer. She was given a five-year sentence with three years executed and two years to be spent on probation.

Headley listed several reasons for his denial of Mitchener's change of placement requested. Among them were:

* That she had so far only served 25 percent of her executed sentence.

* That she had taken part in no rehabilitation programs at the DOC.

* That in the request, no means by which Mitchener could begin repayment of her debts were cited.

* That "Incarceration, in and of itself, can also serve as a rehabilitation purpose, to wit: To emphasize to the defendant that such criminal actions have consequences which entail restrictions on personal freedoms."

Headley went on to say that "The only way the defendant may modify her sentence is to have the prosecutor agree to the modification, which has not occurred at this time."

Mitchener is currently serving her sentence at the Indiana Women's Prison in Indianapolis. She pled guilty to one count of Class C felony corrupt business influence and one count of Class D felony theft. Under the terms of her plea agreement, five other felony counts pending against her were dismissed.

In his motion for change of place of confinement, Perry said Mitchener had received all the benefits that could be gotten from confinement, and that if she had been placed on electronic monitoring she "could begin working and meeting her restitution responsibilities."

Long argued that any change in Mitchener's place of confinement would be a sentence modification, which was expressly prohibited under the terms of the plea agreement into which she entered.

Mitchener was arrested on Dec. 2. She bonded out of jail the same day, and did not return to jail until after she was sentenced in July.

Court records said Mitchener wrote $56,639.19 worth of checks from the ONT's account to a vendor called PC Technologies -- which turned out to be a dummy corporation she set up and opened a bank account for. Mitchener deposited the checks she wrote into the PC Technologies account and then moved the money into her personal account, which was at a different bank, using online banking services.