Indiana Officials Face Scrutiny Over Missing Charges and Law Enforcement Board Decision

So very quickly, I know most of you are long-time viewers. You’ve been with us all the way back to the radio show days. But for those of you who are not, let me just kind of remind you of two things. Tom Kleinhelter is — I’ll do a very high-level overview, and then we’ll get into what happened yesterday.

How the Kleinhelter Investigation Unfolded and Why It Matters

So Tom Kleinhelter is the sheriff of Dubois County. That is Mike Braun’s home county. In 2024, after an investigation done by the State Board of Accounts — the State Board of Accounts is the government-based organization that monitors and analyzes audits of local governments across Indiana. They look at the books. They look at the expenditures. They make sure everything is being done correctly. An investigation by the State Board of Accounts triggered a state police criminal investigation that culminated in an 80-page probable cause affidavit against the sheriff of Dubois County, Tom Kleinhelter. By the way, and this is very important, Kline and Kleinhelter and Braun are buddies. Kleinhelter and Braun are tight. Kleinhelter was in an ad for Braun. They’re very close. This is very important. So Doug Carter is the state police superintendent at the time. Carter puts one of his best guys, Jeff Herron, on the investigation. Herron puts together an 80-page probable cause affidavit. By the way, Herrin was involved with the Jamey Noel stuff. He was involved with the Dreasjon Reed shooting stuff. He was a 30-year-plus decorated state police officer. Carter picked Herron specifically because he knew he would do the best job, the most thorough job, to find out if there was something corrupt going on here. So ultimately, Herron puts together an 80-page probable cause affidavit, lays out that this dude is guilty as sin, and what he’s guilty of is misusing commissary money. Commissary money, money that comes out of the jail — these people, when they buy stuff in the jail, when inmates buy stuff in the jail, that money then becomes at the disposal of the sheriff for taxpayer expenditures, not for personal stuff. And so, in this 80-page probable cause affidavit, they lay out that Kleinhelter is totally — as did the State Board of Accounts in their investigation — that Kleinhelter is totally using commissary money for personal expenditures, which is a major, major issue. Now, this case went out of Dubois County to Orange County, the neighboring county. A woman by the name of Holly Huddleston took the case as the Orange County prosecutor. That is a normal function. When you have a political figure under investigation, they’re going to give it to a neighboring prosecutor because you want to try to eliminate all semblance of bias or anything else like that. So Doug Carter, state police superintendent, oversees this investigation. Jeff Herron, one of the best officers in all of state police, is the officer put in charge. And it culminates with this 80-page probable cause affidavit given to the Orange County prosecutor. This is at the end of 2024. Then nothing happens. Silence. Braun becomes the governor. Carter is ushered out as state police superintendent, and a guy by the name of Anthony Scott is put into that position. After Anthony Scott is put in as the state police superintendent and Braun becomes governor, the whole case goes away. No explanation from the special prosecutor, no reasoning behind why the 80-page probable cause affidavit would not stand up. Nothing. And she has been asked multiple times about this, the special prosecutor, and she will not give an answer. The only thing that changed is that Mike Braun wins the election, appoints a new state police superintendent, and then all of a sudden, wouldn’t you know, Mike Braun’s close buddy and political ally skates out of an 80-page probable cause affidavit. Most of you know all of that. But for those who are new, we wanted to make sure we lay out each time exactly what’s going on here. Now, last week, Ryan Mears, the Marion County prosecutor, came down and said, okay, Orange County may not do something about this. Southwest Indiana law enforcement may not do something about this. But I will. And he has. He has charged Kleinhelter with making false statements to state police. And because he did it in Marion County, the Marion County prosecutor is charging him. So that’s the background. All of this, Kleinhelter is facing multiple charges, including a felony related to lying to state police in Marion County as a part of this investigation. Okay. So that brings us to yesterday. And by the way, Braun will not publicly really talk about this. Braun has the ability to get the answers to all of this. If Braun came out today and said, I am demanding that the special prosecutor in the Tom Kleinhelter case issue a full report on why he was not charged, on why the 80-page probable cause affidavit was not used to charge Tom Kleinhelter, and ordered that his state police superintendent also say the same thing, we get to the bottom of all of this. Braun doesn’t want any part of it because Braun and his administration are total — they know what went on. This is not a coincidence that this guy skated out the door. It’s not a coincidence that this just all went away. But because of the media attention, this story, as many of you know, was dead in the water until last year. Doug Carter, former state police superintendent, came on our show and we spent an hour talking about how rotten this is, how corrupt this Kleinhelter dude was, how dead in the water he was, and how it stinks to high heaven that when Braun becomes governor and Anthony Scott becomes state police superintendent, this whole thing went away. State media started covering this. It got all sorts of attention. And ultimately that culminated in the Mears indictment. All right, so yesterday, there is a law enforcement training board that oversees credentials for law enforcement figures in the state of Indiana. And one of the things this law enforcement board — because it is obvious what Kleinhelter did, there is no doubt, it’s there in black-and-white numbers, plain as day. Anybody with an IQ above seven can read them and see it. You don’t need to take my word for it. By the way, the 80-page probable cause affidavit is public. You can see it for yourself if you want to know the details. They were trying to figure out how to get rid of this guy. This board, this Indiana Law Enforcement Training Board that oversees credentials for law enforcement officers, wanted to get rid of Kleinhelter. They do not want him having arrest powers. They do not want him having the ability to claim he is a law enforcement officer because he is the world’s biggest underwear stain on the state of Indiana and law enforcement, the world’s biggest skid mark. That’s how we should start describing Tom Kleinhelter, as the world’s biggest skid mark.

Law Enforcement Board Rejects Plea Deal Amid Growing Accountability Concerns

So they were trying to figure out what to do with him. There was a group of people on this board that wanted to do a plea agreement with him that would allow him to keep his law enforcement credentials until 2027 and then voluntarily release them. Sheriff Skidmark, that’s what we’re going to call him. Bob and Sheriff Skidmark. The nicknames are rolling again. We’re all back together again. So this Law Enforcement Board ultimately rejected that settlement that was before them by a vote of 9 to 4. They said, this guy is rotten. We are not going to let Sheriff Skidmark keep his credentials. We’re not signing off on this because we don’t want him to have a whole other three-fourths of a year where he can have the ability to arrest people. Now, he’s an elected official. This would not make him not be the sheriff. It would simply say, you can’t arrest people. You don’t have law enforcement power. Think about that. A sheriff without arrest powers. A sheriff without being able to say he’s a law enforcement official. And they said this reached a fever pitch when they rejected essentially a plea bargain with Kleinhelter, and Braun finally had to step in and do something. Now look, Braun cannot acknowledge what went down because Braun does not want the explanation of how that 80-page probable cause affidavit went away to come out. So what Braun is trying to do now is the bare minimum, which he’s being forced to do, kicking and screaming years on from when all this got exposed about his buddy. And here’s what he did yesterday. He released a statement. And by the way, whoever is Braun’s comms person should be fired immediately. This statement that he put out on Twitter and Facebook from a person who does communications for a living was so bad. There’s no explanation to it. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. There’s no setting up of what happened because he doesn’t want to. He can’t. He can’t because Braun and his people know exactly what went down, and the reason Tom Kleinhelter is not in prison behind bars right now is because Braun became the governor. So Braun is trying to do the bare minimum to make people who are in the know think he did something, but he can’t acknowledge what actually went down, because then more of the public would become aware of what went down. So he issues this bizarre statement in which, if you know what’s going on, you look at this and go, you’re full of crap. And if you don’t know what’s going on, you’re like, what the hell is he talking about? Let me look into this guy a little more. And Braun’s people do this all the time. It was the absolute worst way to handle crisis communication. Here’s the quote he put out yesterday: “Following the recommendation of Superintendent Anthony Scott, chair of the Law Enforcement Training Board, and in light of the failed settlement agreement, I am removing Tom Kleinhelter from the board.” That’s it. That was the statement. Now let’s talk about how ridiculous it is that Kleinhelter is on the board that was investigating him. He’s on the board that was investigating himself and offering a plea deal. How corrupt is that? How rotten is that? That’s our system of law enforcement in the state of Indiana. Corrupt beyond belief. The dude’s on the board that’s investigating him. He’s investigating himself. You think you’re going to get justice on that? Oh, and by the way, his buddy Anthony Scott, Braun’s guy Anthony Scott, he’s on the board too, and voted to let this guy get to keep his law enforcement credentials for the rest of the year. Okay, so Kleinhelter totally makes sense, was appointed to the training board. And by the way, Indiana Capital Chronicle has a big exposé if you guys want to read this. And look, we are going to keep going on this just like we’re going to keep going on the Mid States Corridor. Why? Because Braun is a corrupt, dirty, rotten dude. And no matter what platform I’m on, I am going to spend as much time as necessary to keep talking about this, to do my part to keep this story alive until everybody knows what a corrupt, rotten, unethical dude our governor is, because it’s systemic in that state. It’s a disease. Braun, Diego, Micah, all the same. They do different stuff. They pull different crap. But it is people who believe they are invincible. They believe they are untouchable. And it is infected in our statehouse. It is infected in our state house, and they don’t believe they owe you explanations on things. They don’t believe they’re accountable to you on things, whether it’s in the case of Braun, this Mid States Corridor that he is pushing billions of dollars for that will benefit his business, or Kleinhelter, whether it’s Diego who won’t tell you — I mean, my God, we could be here for the whole two hours talking about everything with Diego — but who won’t tell you who paid for his trip to a foreign country. We’ll just pick that one for today with Diego. Or whether it’s Micah, who lies more often, speaking of underwear, than he changes his underwear, who won’t come clean on what investigation he didn’t do into the AI porn allegedly being shared in his office, who won’t come clean on how he ended up at the NBA Finals with a high-profile, dangerous, known felon. These guys are all behaving in the same manner. Different stuff, but it is the same pattern of behavior. Why? Because they don’t believe they owe you anything. They believe they’re above you, and they’ll get away with whatever they want to get away with. So until justice is actually served in this case — and to me, justice in this case is the charges related to that 80-page probable cause affidavit brought against Kleinhelter. Screw this Ryan Mears stuff, that’s just scratching the surface — until justice is brought on this dirty, rotten sheriff in Dubois County, I’m going to keep talking about it. And when we talk, everybody listens. It’s why Kleinhelter’s facing charges right now from Ryan Mears. So Kleinhelter’s appointed to this board, according to the Capital Chronicle, by Holcomb. Makes sense, right? Talk about two people that probably totally deserve each other. And he had also, as we said, been a member of this committee that was reviewing his own case. Can you imagine? It’s like a prosecutor deciding whether to prosecute himself. And this is, I guess, just standard operating procedure now.

Questions Mount Over Political Influence and Lack of Transparency in Indiana Case

Let’s come back to this. You have this guy who’s totally corrupt. There’s no debate or discussion about it whatsoever. He totally did it. We’ve had Doug Carter on this show. We had him on the old show. You can read the 80-page probable cause affidavit. Mears has filed charges against him. And the only people who know exactly what went down related to those charges not being filed — there are probably four people who know exactly what went down. There may be more than four, but four people who we probably know for sure: Kleinhelter, the Orange County special prosecutor, Anthony Scott, the state police superintendent, and Mike Braun. Any one of those people could cut the crap, come clean, and tell us what went down. Anthony Scott, who knows better than anyone what Kleinhelter did, voted to accept this agreement that would have allowed this corrupt clown to keep his law enforcement credentials for essentially the rest of the year. He can go arrest people. He can use that badge for whatever he wants to use it for. You think that dude, pulling the crap he pulled, would think twice about using his badge for his own benefit? I certainly don’t. Here’s what Scott, the state police superintendent, said after the plea agreement got rejected: “It would have been nice if he resigned, like most people do when they find themselves in those scenarios.” The audacity of Anthony Scott. It would have been nice if he would have resigned? No. You know what would have been nice, Anthony Scott? If he’d been charged in 2024, or in early 2025, when Jeff Herron, a decorated member of law enforcement, presented the Orange County prosecutor with an 80-page probable cause affidavit. That would have been nice. And you, Anthony Scott, have the answers on why that didn’t happen. So stop BSing us. You want this to go away just like Braun wants it to go away. "But in principle," he goes on to say, “We all want the same thing, right? We all want him removed from the board and we want him decertified.” No, we don’t all want the same things. We want him in prison. You want him decertified. You want it to go away. You don’t want us to get answers, Anthony Scott, because you have the answers. Braun has the answers. We don’t want the same things. This man was given a public trust, just like all elected officials are given a public trust. Except his is a little bigger. Why? Because he’s in charge of arresting and bringing criminals to justice. And he’s one of them. He has a badge. He has arrest power. He’s a law enforcement official, for crying out loud. “I understand the opposition.” No you don’t. Because if you understood it, you’d do what the opposition wants. Opposition. By the way, opposition. If you want a corrupt sheriff to go to prison, you’re opposition. If you want a corrupt sheriff held accountable, you’re opposition. Every time these people talk, they tell you exactly how they see you. They tell you exactly what they think. These law enforcement board members who rejected this plea deal, they rejected it because they said, this is not good enough. This man cannot keep his badge. He cannot keep his credentials. We can’t sign off on that. We can’t let him slink into the shadows and just close the book on this. He goes on to say, “They want it done quicker, and I’d like that too.” Then tell the truth. Tell the truth, Anthony Scott. You know why he wasn’t arrested. You know why charges weren’t filed. Tell the truth. You want it done quicker? Tell the truth. All right, let’s do this. Sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out there, Jason. Here’s what one of the guys in the quote-unquote opposition had to say, Brian Scherer, police chief in Ligonier — I think that’s how you pronounce it, L-I-G-O-N-I-E-R. If I’m mispronouncing that town, let me know. Quote: “I can’t and will not vote for someone who is the chief law enforcement officer in their county to continue to operate on our certification. We have held other officers accountable for the same violations. I cannot stand for it.” Bingo. Perfect. Couldn’t say it any better myself. The reality is this guy would be in prison right now if he were anybody but Braun’s friend. If he were anybody but Mike Braun’s political ally, he would be in prison right now. And not only is he not in prison, it took the Marion County prosecutor to even bring charges, and he still has his badge, and he still has his gun, and he can still make arrests. This is why people don’t trust the government. This is why people hate the government, because this guy is totally getting off based on who he is and who he knows.