Smith retires as warden of Putnamville Correctional

Brian is the finest Warden I have ever worked with. He came up through the ranks and he had the utmost respect of his employees. He was a pleasure for the Prosecutor's to work with. Brian will be missed, Tim Bookwalter

Surprised to see Putnam County prosecutor Tim Bookwalter leaving a comment here. It seems a little self-promoting in my opinion, in this election year.

I've personally had concerns about Mr. Bookwalter's judgment ever since May 2019 at the Putnam County Prosecutor's Roundtable forum, where he said Putnam county was the "child molester capital of the world"??? I believe he also suggested we had a rapidly growing number of sex offenders as well. I think I remember gasps from audience when he said that. He would know since it's his job to prosecute every one of these horrible crimes, right?

I was so bothered by these comments, I actually spent a few hours researching the sex offender registry for Putnam County, and all seven surrounding counties for comparison. I also compared Putnam to Vigo, as well as Huntington and Harrison counties ( two counties in Indiana with similar populations).

The truth is that Putnam has less than average per capita sex offenders (as of May 7, 2019).

I compared total offenders, and offenders whose crimes were child-related only, and the averages were about the same.

This shocking statement by the prosecutor is irresponsible to me, why would he say something like that at a public forum? Was it just performing for the audience ? Or was it possibly to provide cover or suggest a justification for some controversial action involving him, or one of the judges, or some other agency?

For anyone interested in hearing it themselves, the video of the event is on youtube, and I think the statement was made a few minutes after the one hour mark.

Related to my previous comment about the prosecutor's forum, there's a story told at this forum about when Matt Headley was a prosecutor and got punched in the face in the courtroom....

What's even more interesting to me regarding this, it would make the third time (publicly reported) that Matt Headley has been physically attacked in court or threatened.

I've read it's extremely rare for someone to try to physically attack an official in a courtroom, and most judges go their whole career without an incident like that.

It suggests to me that the way Headley deals with people may be unusually offensive or antagonizing for people who are likely already in a stressful or emotional state.

It's been reported in the past some requests by the courthouse wanting more security. This could be one contributing factor, other than the idea of citizens generally becoming more dangerous and hostile in the courthouse.

One more point relating to my previous comment about the prosecutor's roundtable forum, some might recall a few weeks after the forum in May 2019, it was reported that the Indiana Court of Appeals had determined Judge Headley had illegally granted an order to confiscate money from a person during a traffic stop, and ordered the sheriff's dept. to return $77,000. I have to wonder if the forum was an opportunity to get out in front of this. Why was the forum held in the first place, for what purpose?

But that illegal forfeiture case was not the first time this happened. In 2009, a very similar case occured involving illegal forfeiture, Judge Headley and prosecutor's office under Bookwalter.

The 2009 case gained national attention when it was reported in Slate magazine. Articles are still at slate.com and reason.com.

That case was only $17,500, but the reporting exposed what is said to be the unconstitutional practice of Indiana prosecutors using private attorneys to prosecute forfeiture cases on contingency, and counties claiming virtually all the leftover forfeiture money as "reimbursement" for costs and fees, when it's actually supposed to go to a fund for public schools, according to state law.

In the 2009 case Headley decided there was not sufficient evidence to seize the money, but then recused himself days later from the case, allowing another judge to reverse his decision. I would guess Headley's recusal came from pressure from higher-up government officials and his political party. There was also an allegation made at the time by the prosecuting attorney working for Bookwalter that Judge Headley had only decided there was insufficient evidence to seize the money because he was upset that the prosecutor's office wouldn't use $5,000 of forfeiture funds for new a/v equipment for his courtroom! The article suggests that Headley should know the a/v equipment request was improper, which to me implies this a common practice of courts and law enforcement using forfeiture money as some sort of "reward bonus" for their department, which Headley appeared to be ok with.

My takeway is that this is an eye-opening look at what our courts want us to believe is a noble and just practice of taking "drug money" and using it to help schools, but is actually just another racket where all the individuals involved will profit and benefit...

Raker. I’m not really sure why you posted all of this here. The article is about Brian Smith retiring; not about your feelings against Tim Bookwalter and Matt Headley.. And many congratulations to Brian on his retirement.

Raker - there is a time and a place... this is neither.

But I do share your sentiment about civil asset forfeiture and its use/abuse. I would imagine that our thoughts in regards to Bookwalter and Headley are not too far off either.

Please make sure that people (and not just BG readers) know about this come election time.