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Sunday, April 04, 2010
Ind. Law - "Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi ordered lenient deal for business partner's client"
That is the headline to a lengthy special report by Cory Schouten of the Indianapolis Business Journal. Some quotes from near the end of the story:
Allegations about Brizzi’s influence peddling may already have damaged the reputation of the Prosecutor’s Office.During jury selection for a robbery case in February, defense attorney Patrick Stern brought up the Epperly case, telling potential jurors that those who donate to Brizzi can get a break on sentencing. He compared the donor-prosecutor relationships to that of a witness who had agreed to testify against his client in exchange for a lighter sentence.
On Stern’s next case, the Prosecutor’s Office asked Judge Bob Altice to ban Stern from discussing Brizzi’s political contributions. Altice sided with Stern. * * *
Repairing the reputation of the Prosecutor’s Office first would require “absolute and complete disclosure” of outside business dealings involving the prosecutor and staff, said [Gary L.] Miller, the former judge and prosecuting attorney.
The second step would be strict avoidance of any appearance of impropriety—recognizing that even one violation of the public trust taints both the office and the elected official.
“Prosecutors have a legitimate amount of discretion they can exercise and, if they use it improperly, it just taints everything else they do,” Miller said. “Unfortunately, you can’t read someone’s mind to tell if they were doing things for the right reasons. That’s the whole problem with one bad act.”
The FBI has been asking questions about Brizzi’s real estate and other business dealings while in office and how they might have influenced his official actions.
Areas of interest include Brizzi’s investment ventures with businessman Tim Durham, the target of a separate securities fraud investigation and a $108,000 donor to the prosecutor’s 2006 re-election campaign. Brizzi’s real estate investments, including stakes in the site of a Broad Ripple bank branch and the restaurant Harry & Izzy’s—a portfolio he has built without much in the way of cash or obvious assets—also have raised questions.
Many of the real estate deals were in partnership with John M. Bales, a principal in locally based Venture Real Estate who gave more than $10,000 for Brizzi’s 2006 campaign and represented the Prosecutor’s Office in its lease deal at 251 E. Ohio St.
Brizzi has resisted calls from former supporters to resign, and he has a personal interest in sticking around: Brizzi will be eligible for a public pension if he finishes his second term, which ends in December. With eight years of service, he will be entitled to earn 24 percent of his highest annual salary of $125,000, or about $30,000 per year once he reaches retirement age, by IBJ’s calculation.
Top local Republicans discouraged Brizzi from seeking re-election to a third term—a decision Brizzi announced in January—and later stepped in to push aside his chief of staff, Helen Marchal, after she announced plans to run. Marchal cited family reasons when she said she would not seek the office.
Instead, the party recruited Mark Massa, the former general counsel to Gov. Mitch Daniels.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 4, 2010 09:45 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts | Indiana Government | Indiana Law