Doug Carter

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Allegations of public corruption with one of Mike Bron's political allies.
It's Kennel and Casey Show. I'm Rob Casey's here. This
is an incredible story and we have an incredible guest
to help tell it. And the story involves Tom Kleinhelter.
He is the sheriff of du Bois County, a I
think what most people would say, a close political ally
of Governor Mike Braun and an investigation into public corruption

(00:23):
the state Police launched last year. That leadership at the
time felt was pretty strong. And then once Governor Braun
became the governor and a new state Police superintendent was named,
the case mysteriously went away. Who's fired up about it?
He's the former superintendent of Indiana State Police. You know him.
His name is Doug Carter. Doug joins us now Doug Carter.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Hello, Hello, Rob's good to be with you.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
And this is the case that I've been aware of
for quite a while now, and it had been on
my radar and when I reached out to you and
we connected, you talked about the passion you had for
this and how important it was for the public to
know about it. And we'll get into the details of

(01:06):
it here in just a moment. But first of all,
it just kind of let her by know. Obviously, you're
not the superintendent of the Indiana State Police now, but
you were when this investigation was launched, and you felt
passionate enough about it. Now even though you got nothing
other than caring about the public involved in this, why
are you speaking out today.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, Robin's really pretty simple. I've always tried to live
my life above reproach and above even a perception of impropriety,
and a lot of things happened on my watch. I
was the superintendent for twelve years, the longest in the
history of the agency. I love the agency to this day,
and I love its people even more. And we always

(01:46):
tried to stand for what was right and do things
the correct way, no matter the outcome. So we didn't
have an anticipated outcome of almost anything. And we've talked
much about Delphi and about Flora, and about a lot
of high profile cases, and there was a lot of
criticism at the time about a lot of things, and
that was okay. I wasn't afraid of that. But even
though I'm retired now, and by the way I retired,

(02:08):
I wanted to it was a forty year career, long time.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
You're one of the few goes by choice, not by force.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, right, right, And as I watched a couple of
events that occurred, in cases that occurred on my watch,
I'm mortified at how they've been handled, and I'm not
going to let the right thing to do is what
I'm doing. The wrong thing would be to do nothing.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, And that's why I wanted to have Doug in today, Casey,
because obviously this involves the public interest, the public trust,
allegations of violation of that, but also because we always
talk about people step it up and the need for
people to speak out. And I think in the case
of you, Doug, you gain nothing by doing this. It'll
cause you more headaches. First of all, you're associating with us.

(02:50):
That'll probably be a thing against your reputation. But you're
doing it because you're saying this is the right thing
to do, and you want to inspire others to do that.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
I do. I do.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Where we get into it, Rob, can we ask Doug Carter,
former superintendent of the ISP, what is the job of
the superintendent?

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Oh gosh, that would take an hour plus to talk at.
Essentially Essentially, that person runs a full service police agency
from north to southeast to west, seventeen eighteen hundred people,
bad things happening to good people every single day. The
legislative process, the political process, very complicated investigations, and then

(03:31):
the work behind the scenes to keep all that going,
keep it funded, and keep it trained, and make sure
those specialties are still there to support local agencies in
large part. But in rural Indiana we have an absolute presence.
So we have an urban model, a rural model, and
then a combination of the of those two. So it's
it's it's a it's a fast moving train every single day,

(03:52):
and it was. It was difficult, but also the highlight
of my life.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah, all right, So former State Police Superintendent Doug Carter
is our guest. Let's talk about the case. And this
is a case that has been somewhat in the public aisle,
although it seems there could be a lot more to
the story than what has been revealed. And that's what
you're here to talk about today. And this involves the
Dubois County Sheriff. His name is Tom klein Helter, and

(04:20):
an investigation that took place. By the way, he's somebody
that is very close to Governor Braun. If you google
those two names together, Tom klein Helter and Mike Braun,
you'll see you a big endorsement for Governor Braun. I
believe he was in Governor Braun's campaign commercials. He's the
sheriff of his home county. And this involves an investigation

(04:43):
that you helped launch back last year while you were
still superintendent, involving potential public corruption.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Tell us about it, Yeah, well, essentially, Rob to go
back even before that, just very briefly, this is on
the heels of the Jamie Nol investigation in Clark County,
which was the largest case of public corruption in our history.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Now he is the former Clark County sheriff. He has
a big power broker. He is currently in prison for
various crimes against humanity. And you, the state Police, helped
see that investigation through.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yes, the same detective that ran that case was assigned
to this one. Hugely complicated, hugely layered, a lot of
money going back and forth in different places. So I
watched that case very carefully, and I watched it carefully
as a protective layer around those that were doing the
work because some of This work was not very popular,
but it was right.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
How hard is a public corruption case, whether it was
what you guys did with Noel or whether this du
Bois County Sheriff Tom and Klein Helter. We're about to
talk about how hard is it to do a public
corruption case? For you guys the state police.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
It's not hard if you do it the right way,
and you do it with one outcome, and that's the truth.
That you leave subjectivity out of it, you leave your
personal opinions out of it. And what you do is
through through a series of steps with a little bit
of technology, you find out the facts. We might exonerate
the individual, and we've done that before.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Your goal is to get the truth. You don't go
into like this investigation that you helped launch with the
client Helter or Noel or anyone wanting them to be guilty.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Absolutely, you want to know the truth. Oh for sure,
for sure, you can't make it up. I've said said
many times, I don't say what happened Orf they did
what anymore, but we will always we always would have
done the right thing for the right reasons. And that's
maybe an altruistic approach, but it just the way we
have to do it without even the perception of impropriety.

(06:38):
But some of these cases are, up to your question,
lead to division, with political divide, with individuals not agreeing,
and that makes them a bit difficult. But we have
to stay above all that, and that's what the ice
piece should always stay above that.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, so let's let's talk about client Helter, because obviously
the over you know, the thing holding over all this
is he is very close to the governor. He had
a very close relationship with the governor. The public can
see it. You have to take our word for it.
But tell us about client Halter, what he's alleged to
have done, and how he got on your radar.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, well he got on our radar because the State
Board of Accounts they do audits of units of government
all over Indiana.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
And we talked about them the other day. Case they're
talking about them. Their job is to go in and
look at the finances of a local government entity. They
do them for school corporations, cities, towns, counties and make
sure to the best their ability, money is being spent properly.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Correct, that's right. And since they don't have law enforcement authority.
Now one of them is a retired trooper. One of
them is retired FBI agent. So these guys have extensive
knowledge and when they go in and do these audits,
it's not a source of intelligence. It's not a rumor,
it's not a conversation that occurred. They have articulable facts

(07:55):
that they believe leads to criminal behavior.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
How are they received when they show up to do
an audit?

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Generally pretty well. I was a sheriff, and I remember
when when they came in, and I was tried to
be as obviously as transparent as can be and that
there are no secrets here generally speaking. There they're very receptive.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
Okay, so they got wind right or did they just
find this through their regular audit?

Speaker 2 (08:20):
It was a regular audit, okay. Yes.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
So Kleinhalter as the sheriff of du Bois County, he
controls what's called the commissary. Can you just very briefly
explain what that is.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
It's explained in Title thirty six in Indiana Code in
ill law, and it gives nine reasons that the commissary
how the commissary funds can be used. What is commissary
funds are generated by the inmates purchasing tangible items in
the jail in the jail, in the jail, and it's
meant for operation of the of the agency essentially.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
And the sheriff then, and this is true in what
every county they oversee that the money that comes in
from the commissary they do.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
And there's also a requirement that they communicate twice a
year with data and documents to their county Council, the
fiscal body of the county, so that they can see
how those expenses are being made.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Okay, So what did State Board of Accounts allegedly find
when it came to dealing with client Halter and and
the commissary specifically travel? There were some travel vouchers and
travel expenses that came up that drew significant attention by
the State Board Accounts. We knew nothing about this at

(09:25):
the time. State Police, the State Police, right, we get
wind of this when they reach out to us officially
and say we think there's a criminal predicate here, would
you look into it for us? Now, they have a
public document that's available to all of our citizens that
explains what they found during that audit. So that's all
public record. State former Police, State Superintendent Doug Carter is

(09:47):
our guest. We're talking about an investigation that he helped
oversee last year related to du Bois County Sheriff Tom Kleinhelter,
who is the sheriff du Bois County, appears to be
close associate of Governor Braun. The things that they the
state Police uncovered, the State Board of Accounts uncovered, and
then how this investigation kind of ultimately took a bizarre

(10:09):
turn at at the end. All right, so Clientholter was
allegedly doing what with the money with the commissary.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
He was a bit free wheeling with it a bit.
I mean, there was there were there were some questionable expenditures,
which is generally how this happens. And and by the way,
the vast majority of sheriff in Indiana are wonderful people. Yeah,
so I'm not categorizing everybody into this into this into
this same in the same category. But essentially was was
was purchasing travel, flights, hotels, uh for both he and

(10:40):
his wife, and and.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
You just get it's a lot of money, right, I
Mean we're talking like trip to Arizona, Florida, Dubai, and
he was trying to crectly if wrong. He was trying
to say these are valid sheriff related type of that's
try spenses. Now, Dubai seems very far away to be sheriffing,
but agreed the real issue was that his wife was
involved in the travel correct.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yes, and then how the money was moving out of
commissary to personal accounts, personal accounts back to the commissary
personal credit cards, and that was all done through forensic
evaluation and through the process of the investigation, and it
was found that the money did not land where it
should have landed.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Now, according to fourteen news dot com who covered this,
they claimed nine thousand dollars of those funds that were
being investigated were travel expenses. As we said twenty twenty
one to twenty twenty three that it also showed that
the sheriff spent nearly eight thousand dollars on prepaid gift
cards and employee gift cards. These are all things that
the state Board of Accounts uncovered in their investigation. That's right,

(11:43):
And there was a way he was reporting it that
was also a red flag as well, because the county,
the county government is supposed to oversee this, and there
were ways he was allegedly reporting this that might have
been to evade detection and was a.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Bit obstinate throughout the course of the of the process
with the Council and the commission I personally, I've talked
to one of the commissioners down there by design for
no nefarious reason, of course, but you just let him
know what we would do and why we would do this,
and the common theme seemed to be that he was
being a bit optionate, not wanting to report.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
Okay, let's take a break. Our guests. This hour special
guest former Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter, joining us,
talking about an investigation last year into a close political ally,
or what I think many people wouldink is a close
political ally of Governor Mike Brown, the sheriff of Dubois County,
Tom Kleinhelter, and allegations of misuse of money, an investigation

(12:36):
Sheriff Carter helped launch when he was a superintendent of
State Police, and an investigation that mysteriously went away. It's
Kenilla Casey Show, Naughty Three, WIBC, Miss Kenne mccasey Show.
Now if you're going to want WIBC, I'm Rob Casey's
their special hour of radio and special guest in studio.

(12:56):
He is the former superintendent of State Police here in Indiana,
Doug car and we are talking about this investigation that
he helped launch last year into allegations about misuse of
money by the du Boys County sheriff. His name is
Tom Kleinhelter, and he is I think what many people
would consider a close political ally of Governor Mike Brown.

(13:17):
State Police under Sheriff Carter felt like they had a
strong investigation, and once Governor Bron became the governor and
a new superintendent was in place, the investigation, the case
itself mysteriously went away. So if you are just joining us,
we'll pick up here with Sheriff Carter. This investigation that
you guys did as state police was triggered by an

(13:38):
investigation from the State Board of Accounts. The State Board
of Accounts then comes to you, the State Police, or
they come to you directly and say we've uncovered these things.
We think, because we don't have any arrest power things
of nature, you need to investigate this.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
That's correct, then what so we did? We accepted it.
We assigned an organized crime corruption detective to this specific case,
and that was back in July twenty twenty four, just
last year.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Are there certain markers that you have to notice before
you'll say yes to doing it?

Speaker 2 (14:09):
There are, there are a great question from the State
Board accounts. Is generally not, because we have that we
have such a relationship with them and with their past
of law enforcement experience, generally we take those every time.
But there are some if they're just speculative, if there's
a rumor, if we hear from just a single individual
that I think, hey, this is what's happening there, we
won't initially start that. We won't help local entities, agencies,

(14:32):
police agencies do these kinds of do this work with policy?
As an example, there's got to be a criminal predicate
before we do this, because we know it's very sensitive
and this is a big deal.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
And obviously this guy deal, this guy was clearly tied
into the governor in terms of being friends and political allies.
And it's the home county of well.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Just the home county of course, right.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
Sure, so at some point you guys launched the investigation.
A special prosecutor then becomes a part of this. How
does that work?

Speaker 2 (15:00):
That's right? That the court will will the pressing and
trench council get gets involved in that, and there there
are certain attorneys that are willing to do this kind
of work. So through the court, through another group of prosecutors,
Holly Huntleston from Orange County was selected and she agreed
to take the case, which isn't by the way, it's
an adjoining county to do boys.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah, okay, so you uh, you assign a detective and
you weren't real happy with how you felt that investigation
was going. Is that correct?

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Well, here's here's what happened, just very directly. Uh, when
that investigation was assigned, it's pretty clear generally and with
the report that I direct from the State Board accounts,
it's pretty clear what's happened here.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
So you can you get to see it right opening
might be.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
And especially on the heels of Clark County and Jamie Nole,
I wanted to make darn good and sure we were
doing everything absolutely correctly. Yeah, And so I would I
would periodically get updates about where it was, what was happening.
And it didn't happen very quickly. I think the initial
detective had it five or six weeks and hear he
decided to go to Holly Huddleston the prosecutor, and basically

(16:16):
say nothing here. But there was no one document created,
no case report, no probable cause AFFI David, there were
not interviews done, there was no forensic evaluation done, there
were no search warrants done. And come to find out,
I don't think his heart was in this. I'd like
to think that it wasn't capricious. And and and you.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Were and you were concerned enough about this. Former Indiana
State Superintendent Doug Carter is our guest if you're just
joining us, we're talking about this case involving the Dubois
County sheriff whose name is Tom Kleinhelter and allegations of
government corruption. Uh, and will take you through. I mean,
it's a very very odd story. And and Dougs and

(16:56):
Grace is enough to come in and phillis in on
this today and where this case is at now and
some of the crazy turns it's taken. So you were
not happy with the job this detective was doing. And
you said somebody else got to look at this because
I've seen this case. There's more than this here.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
Well, and again I never thought there was anything that
faire us to it at all. At the time, I
just thought it's a long ways away. Jasper's a long
way some Innnianapolis.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, he was.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
He was complaining about some discomfort.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
The detective that had the case.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
I had the case initially, and and I can't ever
of the hundreds of these we did while I was
there for twelve years, none of them ended this way.
This process, the normal process that we that we took,
stopped on this day when when he went without any
documentation to sit down with a prosecutor and have that conversation.
I'd like to know who told him to do that.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
Yeah, that's that's not typical.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
No, No, it's not typical at all. No, it's not
typical at all, especially with nothing in our evidence, in
our in our case reporting system, or in our evidence
system to come to that conclusion without any I've never
been a detective, but I have. I got to represent
some really good ones. Yeah, and without search warrants, without interviews.
Even though there were interviews done, they were at best cursory.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
All right, So you say I've seen this, I think
there's more here. For whatever reason, this guy is not
doing his job. Let's send in someone with basically an
impeccable record to take a look at this. Who did
you send in?

Speaker 2 (18:18):
His name is Jeff Herron. He's the very best of us.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
He did the Jamie nol investigation. Did people may remember
his name because it was public that Deshaun Reid.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
You think Jeff Herron was one of the ones that
kept the city of Indianapolis from completely imploding.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yeah, so you said, let's send the best of the
best down here. And what did he find?

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Well, he started the He was first initially going introduce
a peer review of what the initial detective did or
didn't do. But when we realized that that that there
was really nothing done and the decision was made, he
started from scratch. So ten search warrts, they're all public
through the du Bois County court system.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
So he basically found this initial detective wasn't doing much
of anything.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
He didn't, That's correct, he didn't, and.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
That detective had gone to the special prosecutor without doing
much of anything and basically saying that they she shouldn't
be filing charges, that she shouldn't be Yes, And again, look,
you can't say this.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
I wasn't. I wasn't there during that conversation, right, Sure,
that was the outcome.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
And just a timeline on this again for people, you
got to remember this is what like late summer, fall
of last year, heading towards fall of last year.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
This was in September.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah, so Braun. Braun is the Republican nominee for governor.
All the poles show he's likely to be the next governor.
This guy clearly has a very public, high profile relationship
with the governor. I think you have to just keep
reiterating that as part of this. Okay, so you send
the pro down, right, you send Jeff here an impeccable reputation.
He finds, Hey, there's there's.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
A lot here, There's a lot here. And again those
those charch warrants are all public documents, and I hope
people we'll take a chance to review them. But he
found a very strong likelihood probable cause to believe that yeah,
theft had theft, perjury, official misconduct, and conflict of interest.

(20:04):
And this was after a comprehensive three month interview again
with search warrants, data reviews, personal interviews with counsel commissioner,
the matron of the jail, with the sheriff himself, and
an eighty page probable cause AFFI David was established over

(20:25):
the course of this of the investigation itself.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Were you getting updates from Jeff Hearron throughout this process?

Speaker 2 (20:30):
I was by design, Yeah, And again I was taking
a hit over that. People think that I had this
long standing friendship with Jeff hearn I did not. I've
known him for thirty five years, but I didn't have
a personal relationship with him, and frankly, I still don't.
But we have a in the structure that we have.
We're a pretty structured agency and the tiers of control

(20:52):
are pretty significant. So for a lieutenant to be calling
me as a superintendent directly is a bit unusual, but
I've done it many times before with high profile cases, homicides,
whatever that might be. So Jeff had access to me personally.
I wanted to make sure he was protected. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
And the other part of this, too is we all
the time look at stuff. We do this on our
show every single day. In fact, there's some pretty high
profile people we're talking about right now where we say
something appeal is very off with this government official. Can
someone please step up and look into this. You're doing it.
You being Doug Carter, the superintendent of State Police, you

(21:30):
know who this guy is connected to. You see the
initial investigation or lack thereof. You say, look, the public
needs to know if there's nothing here, we need to
send a pro in. This guy finds all sorts of
stuff and then he goes to the What does he
does then? Hearing the new investigator, does he go to
the special parts and go look, this guy wouldn't do
his job. Here's what we found.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah. I actually called the prosecutor and told her why
we were switching detectives. I called her and I told her,
I said, I'm sorry about this. This is not how
we do business right. So I'm going to sign a
guy that just got off the of the a very
high profile case in Clark County, and I'm gonna have
him take a peek at this. And I when I
talked to Jeff, I say, hey, this is going to
be easy. Boy. Was I wrong?

Speaker 1 (22:09):
So what happens? What happens then?

Speaker 2 (22:13):
So Jeff communicated with with with Holly Huddleston pretty routinely.
He's got all of the records of that communicate, whether
that be text messages, emails, uh, his conversations with her
personally always had He had another detective with him or two,
and she was she was lovely. I mean, she was
very engaging, she was very respectful, very kind.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Did she give him the impression that at any point
was she like, well, you're just out in left field
on this Citi.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Oh No, absolutely not.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
No.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Actually, and and maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here,
rob but but uh, Lieutenant Herron reached out to me
in in November after the primary, after the general election
when Braun becomes the gun he was a governor elect,
and Jeff said to me, there's much more higher probability
than not that criminal charges will be coming on this case.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
Okay, so I want I want to make sure we
get through this in the hour. If you're just hitting in.
Former State Police Superintendent Doug Carter is our guest. We're
talking about this investigation last year into the du Bois
County Sheriff Tom Kleinhelter involving public corruption. And okay, so
you're your detective talks as special prosecutor's giving all signs

(23:24):
of yeah, boy, good job, you know, thanks for doing
all this, and then there's a period right after the
election where just nothing happens.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
Well, yeah, but there's a couple of important details that
led up to nothing happening. And one of them is
that after this probable cause was established, the kind of
prosecutor read it and wanted Jeff to go back and
do a little bit more work on the intent. So
he did.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
Is that normal?

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Very normal?

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. Back and forth he was. Jeff
would communicate directly with the judges on his search warrants.
An enormous amount of work was done, enormous amount of work.
And I called Earl Good, who was Governor Holcombs chief
of staff. He's like a father to me. I loved
him and I miss him dearly. And I said, hey, Earl,
here's what we're finding out down there again on the

(24:10):
heels of a very high profile case in Clark County
with no and this is a governor's county, the net
governor elects county. So I told Earl, I said, I
really think I need to let him know this. I
don't know when this is going to happen, but there's
a lot strong likelihood that it will. Knowing he's been
a very successful candidate, He was very popular in the
du Bois County areas, hugely successful businesses. You're talking about Braun.

(24:33):
I'm talking about Braun.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
So you said, I need to tell Braun that this
is going on with this dude.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
Correct. So Earl said, absolutely, I agree with you. So
I called Josh Kelly, his chief of staff, and Josh
and I had a respectful, candid, direct conversation. Didn't last
very long. He thanked me for letting him know and
that he would let the governor elect know what was happening.
And we hung up and then radio silence. It wasn't
long after that it was radio silence.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Okay. So, because again I want to try to.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
Media isles from the prosecutor.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Jeff was having a hard time getting a hold of her.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
All right, let's take another break. If you're just joining us,
our guest this hour, former State Police Superintendent Doug Carter.
We're talking about this investigation into the Duboys County Sheriff
Tom Kleinhelter like what many people would consider a political alley,
close political ally of Governor Mike Braun, an investigation about
misuse of money and a case that went away when
Governor Braun became the governor. Kennel Casey Show ninety three

(25:27):
WIBC it Kennell and Casey show a Rob Casey here
Special Hour Radio. Our guest this hour is former State
Police Superintendent Doug Carter. We are talking about an investigation
he helped launch last year into the Duboys County Sheriff
Thom Kleinhelter involving misuse of public money. Klein Helter, many

(25:51):
people believe, a close political ally of Governor Mike Braun,
and a case that despite the fact last year when
Superintendent Carter was still superintendent, he and the investigator but
was a very strong case went away once a Superintendent
Carter stopped being the superintendent of State Police. Governor Braun
became the governor and put a new person in that

(26:12):
position first of the year. You say, hey, I've dealt
with you people long enough. I'm done being the state
superintendent and I'm gonna go have happiness for once.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Well, those are your words, certainly not mine.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
And so Braun appoints a new state Police superintendent. He did,
and on the heels of that, then there comes this announcement.
Now this is keep mind, we've had silence on this
case for what appears to be a relative silence for months,
and then, according to the fourteen news dot com website,

(26:46):
this was published. At the end of February, it is
announced that there will be no charges filed against the
du Boys County Sheriff Tom Klein Helter, What was your
response that, obviously you're out of the game by the point,
you're not calling the shots anymore when you heard this announcement.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
I was, I was so disappointed, not in the outcome. Uh, well,
I guess it would have been the outcome because I
knew the facts that led up to this. So uh
I ended up calling Holly the Social prosecutor Discounty. Yeah,
I did. But you know something else that I missed here, Rob.
There there was a meeting with Holly Huddleston and the
initial detective on this case that didn't do any of

(27:25):
the work that you had to replace, and the sheriff
and his attorney to decide whether or not charges would
come the alleged offender.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yes, the client Helter, the Boys County sheriff is at
a meeting with the state police officer and the prosecutor.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
And the state police officer that didn't do the work
that Jeff Heron did.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Is that normal?

Speaker 2 (27:42):
No? Absolutely not. It's not normal. The alleged perpetrator and
even and then He was even allowed to put out
a press release that he was essentially exonerated that I
don't think was completely faction.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Let's hang on just like this is really important. They
basically let Clein Helter put out press release telling the
public he was not going to be charged.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yes, it's successible via is online?

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Is that normal?

Speaker 2 (28:06):
No? Absolutely not, It's not normal. I didn't know that occurred.
I did not know that meeting occurred. And I asked
when I called Holly, she took my call.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
When did that meeting occur?

Speaker 2 (28:16):
H It was after I left.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
So you have a new superintendent. Radio silence, bronze guy
gets in there, and then all of a sudden, what
you feel is a pretty if I'm using the wrong words,
tell me you feel it's a pretty open and shutcase
into what's going on with this alleged public corruption with
the two boys Kenny Sheriff, all of a sudden, not
only the are no charges filed, he gets to write

(28:39):
his own press rely saying hey, look at me, I'm
out of here.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
He even references two state police investigations, which is just
again disingenuous. That's not accurate.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yes, that's okay, So.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
You're my response was initially sent. I initially sent an
email or a text message to Anthony Scott, who is
the new superintendent, right and Chris. I think I copied
Chris on that, but he's a number number two guy,
And I said Anthony something like I'm gladly would share it.
I can't believe this happened. I'm going to respond to this,

(29:11):
but I don't want to get ahead of you. Let
me know what you're going to do to protect and
defend these deck detectives that work tirelessly on this.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
And this may be a stupid question, but when a
prosecutor says, I mean no, matter how obvious something is,
if a prosecutor says no, that's it, or I go home.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Well some would say that I say, that's not the
way it should be.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah, I should at least have.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
A sit down, have a conversation about it. But he
was nobody ever contacted Jeff Herron.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
They didn't have a conversation with didn you the main guy?

Speaker 2 (29:40):
No, he wasn't even invited to the meeting.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, that's wild.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
He wasn't even invited to the meeting.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
So how did he find out the same way everyone
else did?

Speaker 2 (29:49):
He was called by as I understand it, he was
called by the initial detective and told to return klein
Helter's property.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Phone, all this stuff. But they were gather evidence from
So what are you talking about now? Correct me if
i'm I don't know if you can talk about this
or not. But there was a lot of communication between
Clinhelter and Braun that was found.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Oh yeah, there were there were messages between the two
of them over this period of time. I didn't find
that to be necessarily unusual, Okay, but I thought this
could be problematic because of the relationship moving forward. Well,
we got to stay above it. We've got to stay
above it.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, So just real quick and then we'll try to
get this wrapped up. Make sure we get it done
here in the hour. So if you're just joining us,
former state please Superintendent Doug Carter is our guest. We'll
talk about this investigation that took place last year involving
I think it's safe to say guy who's pretty close
with the governor, the du Boys County Sheriff, Tom Kleinhelter.
You can see the endorsements that are online. He was
in the I believe he was in the advertisement for

(30:44):
the governor and this investigation that the former Supertitt Carter
helped oversee involving alleged public corruption and Tom Kleinhelter what
he felt his investigator felt was a pretty open and
shut case, a case that once Doug left and the
governor pointed a new superintendent magically just kind of went away.

(31:05):
A lot of red flags involving how it went away.
And then you talked to the new superintendent and what happened.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Well, I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't
talk to me about it.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Like he wouldn't take your caller. He was like, I'm
just like no on the phone, Like, what do.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
You mean Everything that I've done, I've done with writing
in writing. Yeah, I tried to have a and I
love this guy. I was very very close to him.
I don't know what happened. I just don't know what happened.
But I tried to communicate with him, and now it's
now it's all in writing to make sure that it's
true that there's a record of it. But he never
would acknowledge anything about this case to me ever, never

(31:41):
asked me any questions about it other than rumor and
speculation about my relationship with the detective, and that my
dislike for the sheriff. And I don't even know the sheriff.
I maybe had five conversations with him in my lifetime,
and many of those conversations were helping him get on
law enforcement training board as one as one of the board.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Okay, So the prosecutors then, under somewhat mysterious circumstances, says
no nothing, everything go home. They order your guy Heron
to give this sheriff all his stuff back, and then
they start going after the investigator they did, Jeff Herron,
And it's sickening. Now keep in mind this is and

(32:20):
this is the kind of the crescendo of this whole thing,
because this is very weird. This is a guy who's
been in law enforcement thirty plus years, super distinguished career,
was helping lead the Jamie Nole investigation, which was very successful.
He was at the heart of the Deshaun Reid investigation,
which was very successful. Like you pointed out, city did
not burn, there was no rioting. The thorough investigation they
did was very key. And then they start going after

(32:43):
him for.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
What hundred homicides, school shootings, violent crimes against kids. This
guy's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, they what are this? And it's his own guys, right,
the state police start going after him for what?

Speaker 2 (32:54):
The superintendent and the colonel started going after him.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
The guy pointed by Braun, correct, Okay, for what.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
That's a very good question. It's a very good question.
But they they they started an internal investigation on him
that just ended here within the last couple of weeks.
I'm continuing to learn about that.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
How does that end?

Speaker 2 (33:13):
He got moved to a job that doesn't matter. He
was suspended for two days. He can't teach anymore. He
can't teach homicide classes, he can't teach school shooting classes,
he can't teach child crimes against kid classes. I mean,
and it's there's there's zero excuse. I had hundreds of
disciplinary matters while I was the superintendent, and I never

(33:36):
did anything because I could. I did everything because I should.
And Anthony Scott sat in those meetings with me when
we were deciding discipline to talk about what should happen
If if Jeff did what they've accused him of doing,
and found that he did they thought they think he did,
it would have been at most a letter of reprimands.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
What do they even think he did. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
He sent and he sent an email to the process
getting attorney that I have a copy of, and it
did much kinder that I would have written. And it
basically says, why did you do this? Why did you
have this meeting without me? And come to this conclusion?
Our relationships are important? I'm fair phrasing because this four
or five paragraphs long. Sure, I would really like to

(34:19):
sit down with you. And I have had prosecutors before,
not file and it doesn't upset me. But I want
to know what we need to do to be better?
What'd we do wrong? And he got demoted for that.
He didn't get demoted, but he got reassigned. Reassigned, Okay, yes,
because they said it was disrespectful. There's nothing disrespectful about
this letter. And it should terrify every single state police

(34:40):
officer in Indiana to think that's the bar of how
we can talk and treat people.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah, because and then I asked you this, and you know,
like my old man was in law, federal law enforcement
for twenty years. He worked for federal judges. Obviously they
were the boss, right, you'd never questioned the judges whatever? Yes, yes, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, whatever,
But the state Police don't work for a prosecutor. You're
entitled to ask, hey, we thought this was an open
set case, and you seem to be on board with
us the whole time.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
You were helping me all along.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
And then Braun becomes the governor and all of a sudden,
this all goes away.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
What happened, That's what he wanted to know, That's all
he wanted to know. They said he made derogatory comments
about the initial detective. All he did was say the truth,
tell the truth about what the initial detective didn't do,
and he documented it as he should as a part
of the criminal proceeding. And then the lastly that he
shared law enforcement information with people outside of the outside

(35:31):
of the ISP, and those are the county commissioners and
council into Boise County that he had to work with
to develop his probable cause.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
It sounds like we just got a couple minutes left,
because iain, I want to make sure we get the
full hour. It sounds like the public should be outraged
about this.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
They absolutely should, and the State Police is better than this.
We should be above all of this. And he's got
some questions to answer.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
So let me kind of sum this up because people
will hear this on podcasts. They will be able to
listen linearly some people have been coming and going throughout
the course of the interview. If I missed anything from
your perspective, you tell me, then I'm gonna give you
the final word on something. So basically the track record
of the case is this. An independent group, the State
Board of Accounts catches what they believe are, for lack

(36:14):
of a better term, bad expenditures by the Dubois County
Sheriff related for money from the commissary. They feel strong
enough about it they give it to you guys at
State Police. You look at it and agree, hey, this
looks really bad. You ultimately end up putting one of
your best guys on it. He looks at it and says, yeah,

(36:35):
that looks really bad. He recommends that this special prosecutor
file these charges based on this. The special prosecutor appears
to be completely on board until Mike Braun becomes the
governor Braun, who clearly has some sort of relationship with
this guy. And then all of a sudden, once you're
no longer the state superintendent and Braun is the governor.

(36:58):
Then magically all the charges go away, and you're a
guy who is investigating the case gets in trouble.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
They ruined his career, Rob They've ruined They've ruined his career.
After an eighty page probable cause Affidavid, there are most
detectives that will go career never write one half that long.
This is eighty pages of facts. Eighty pages of facts.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
And in case. The frustrating thing here is we beg
people to investigate public corruption. We beg people to step
up and do something. And we're talking about this with
some pretty prominent people right now in this state that
are in prominent positions. And he does it, he being
Doug Carter, and he puts his best guy on it,

(37:38):
or one of his best guys, and he says, yeah,
it's here, and then all of a sudden, with no explanation,
it all just goes away.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
Doug, you said something earlier, you said he's got some
questions to answer. Who is he?

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Well, I'm I make I came to some conclusions based
on what I know, And a logical conclusion would with
anybody that reads this or sees it or hears it,
would be that there was some level of interference someplace
by either those in the governor's orbit that appoint the

(38:13):
superintendent of the State Police, or between the State Police Alliance.
They were working very close with the alliance, and now
the leadership of the State Police came from the alliance.
So and I know that they've been talking about this
for months in the end of twenty twenty four. I
didn't know it at the time. And that's okay, not
mad about that is somebody in those orbits talked about this.

(38:36):
That's the that's the only logical conclusion, and it's irrefutable.
It is irrefutable that there wasn't somebody that said stop it, stop.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
It if you were and we'll get you out of
here on this, if you were still the state superintendent
and or Mike Brown was not the governor. Do you
believe this case was strong enough that this I would
have been prosecuted. Doug. I want to thank you for
coming in and doing this today, because this is the
thing we begged the public for and you don't have
any reason to have to do this. It doesn't affect

(39:12):
you one way or another other than you want the truth.
And these are the sort of stories people need to
know about and your reputation is above reproach. And we
joked the first time we met. I said I've been
pretty mean to you on the air, and he said,
I don't care about that. You're just doing your job. So, man,
thank you for coming in and telling us about this today. Yeah, absolutely, this.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Is really important to me. Again, I want to remind
your listeners, this is about the top two or three
people on the ISP that were appointed by the governor.
This is not about the rank and file. I'm very,
very worried about them. If this is a bar they
going to set to ruin careers, they should be terrified.
Jeff Herron might have to go out and raise money
to defend himself and that is just absolutely unconscionable to me.

(39:59):
So a time that I loved Anthony Scott and we
were together a long time, I have no idea who
he is today. And if I was the governor, if
there's nothing to this, I would be asking him to
answer to compelling him to answer some of these questions
about why that happened. And it's so painful for me
to say that, but it's just it's the reality of

(40:19):
the difference between right and wrong in a world in
which we live that's so complicated, so convoluted, and fingers
being pointed that this is one of those that's very simple.
Either they did or they didn't, and if they, if they,
if they, if they did, then answer these propelling questions.
But they ruined somebody along the way, and it's unforgivable.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, Doug, thank you for your time, man, thanks for
telling the story, and you're welcome back anytime.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
It is Kendall and Casey. It's ninety three WIBC.