Putnamville offender implicated in case involving father and former correctional officer

With a former correctional officer already convicted and his own father awaiting trial, an inmate was recently charged in a May trafficking incident at Putnamville Correctional Facility.

Late last week, Prosecutor Tim Bookwalter formally filed a Level 5 felony charge of trafficking a controlled substance with an inmate against 21-year-old Algier Flippin Jr.

He joins former Correctional Officer Michael Miller, 25, Plainfield, and Algier Flippin Sr., 47, Indianapolis, in being charged in the case.

However, despite the involvement of his own father and a former officer at the facility in which he is housed, the younger Flippin managed not to be implicated until Miller provided new information to investigators in November.

Interviewed a few days after the original incident, Miller admitted to investigators that he had trafficked 28 strips of suboxone into the facility on May 5.

Suboxone is a drug used to treat opioid addiction.

However, in his original story, Miller implicated a former Putnamville inmate as his contact on the outside and a different current inmate as the man to whom the drugs were delivered.

Neither of these men has ever been formally charged in the case.

A search of Miller’s phone soon implicated Flippin Sr. as the man who allegedly delivered the drugs to the officer in an Indianapolis parking lot.

Both Miller and Flippin Sr. were charged with Level 5 felony trafficking a controlled substance with an inmate and Level 5 felony conspiracy to traffic a controlled substance with an inmate.

Then on Nov. 20, Correctional Investigator Robert Evans interviewed Miller again at the request of the Putnam County Prosecutor.

With his attorney present, Miller again admitted his involvement with the trafficking, but said he had lied about the offender with whom he trafficked.

Miller said Algier Flippin Jr. had asked him to traffic both synthetic marijuana and suboxone, first offering him $1,000 and then $2,000, the point at which Miller agreed.

Miller said he was given a phone number to call and he made arrangements to meet. He said at the meeting he realized the older man was Flippin Jr.’s father.

While Miller said he successfully made the delivery of suboxone, he was arrested before he could receive payment.

On Dec. 16, Miller appeared before Putnam Superior Court Judge Denny Bridges, entering a guilty plea to the lesser included charge of Level 6 felony trafficking with an inmate, with other charges dropped.

Flippin Sr., meanwhile, still awaits a Jan. 28 jury trial in Putnam Superior Court.

Like the other men, Flippin Jr. will also be called to appear before Judge Bridges, though an initial hearing date in the case had not been set as of Monday afternoon.

Convicted in Dec. 2016, Flippin Jr. is incarcerated at Putnamville on a pair of Level 3 felonies, robbery (armed or bodily injury) and attempted robbery (armed or bodily injury) out of Marion County. His earliest project release date is February 2023.