Former IU student accepts criminal confinement plea

By Mia Hilkowitz mhilkowi@iu.edu | @MiaHilkowitz

Editor’s Note: This article includes mention of sexual assault.

Kalp Patel, a former IU student who was arrested on charges that he attempted to rape his female residential assistant in January 2022, pleaded guilty to criminal confinement and was sentenced to 1 ½ years of unsupervised probation last Thursday.

As part of the plea deal, charges against Patel for rape, strangulation, sexual battery, battery resulting in bodily injury, resisting law enforcement and possession of alcohol as a minor will be dropped, according to the case summary.

to check on the student. According to WTHR, after knocking on the door and waiting several minutes for a response, the residential assistant used a master key to enter the dorm room, where she then called 911 after finding Patel slumped over his desk.

The resident assistant told police Patel then suddenly attacked her and allegedly tried to rape her. Initial coverage of the arrest states the residential assistant was able to fight Patel off until IUPD officers arrived at the dorm and took him into custody. Patel was transported to IU Health Bloomington Hospital, then to the Monroe County Correctional Facility.

early March — that the person was not officially listed on the lease.

Bender called the lease an “informal agreement” but distributed copies with the sublessor’s name redacted to the election board members.

“It’s entirely possible that my understanding of that statute is wrong, but it certainly is never my intent to commit any sort of election fraud or any crime,” he said.

Board members ask questions

Questions from board members ranged from discussions of Bender’s eligibility, the specifics of Indiana Code and the timeline of events over the past few months. Members included Monroe County Clerk Nicole Browne, Republican appointee and board chair Donovan Garletts and former Bloomington mayor John Fernandez, who was appointed as a proxy for Democratic appointee David Henry.

Browne questioned the meaning of residency, asking Bender if he would want important documents from a doctor or a bank to be sent to the place he intended to live or the place where he lays his head.

Bender replied that the documents should be sent to the place he is currently residing in but said he didn’t see the connection with the matter at hand.

“And you wouldn’t change (the address) until you actually moved there,” Browne said.

Chopra interjected to say the situations were different. She referred to IC 3-5-5-7, which allows students to register at the address where the student lives when the student is not attending a postsecondary institution. Bender said the original sublease was from May to August, when he would not be attending college.

When asked by Garletts, Chopra confirmed there is no case law on this subject matter. Garletts said he disagreed with the use of IC 3-5-5-7 for this purpose.

“That is an incredibly loose interpretation of that code,” Garletts said. He said the code was put in place for people to register at home with their parents or guardian outside of college — not moving somewhere in the same city for the summer where they have never lived before.

Chopra disagreed, saying one had to focus on the “black-letter language of the law.” Black-letter law describes well-established legal rules usually set on prior case law.

“To classify students as one type of person, one type of group, I think is a little misguided,” she said.

Later, Fernandez asked if Bender contacted the friend he signed a sublease agreement with after the publication of the IDS article.

Bender said he called him but couldn’t recall the specifics of the conversations. He said he had asked him to see a copy of the primary lease during one call, but said his friend said he didn’t have it on him.

When asked why Bender did not correct his voter registration immediately after discovering the agreement was invalid, Bender said his former lawyer told him it would be bad optics.

Bender said he plans to move into his new residence in District 6 sometime next week and didn’t want to correct his voter registration until he was fully moved in.

Next, Browne referenced the Indiana Election Division candidate guide, which says a candidate for city council must reside in the district in which they are seeking election for six months prior to the election. However, Bender and his lawyer argued the word “election” referred to the general election, making the residency cutoff land in May.

The board then approached the subject of Bender’s CFA-4 form, which documents campaign contributions and expenditures. Garletts took issue with the fact that Bender continued to fill out candidate forms as late as April, at least a month after discovering his residency in District 6 was invalid.

Bender said he had no other option but to fill out the form, but Garletts disagreed.

“To answer your question David, there were a thousand things you could have done other than staying silent,” he said.

Chopra then advised Bender to not answer any more questions about the CFA-4.

An invalid sublease agreement

The IDS obtained a copy of the sublease agreement Bender gave the board members. The document is signed by Bender and his friend, with the initials W.S., dated Dec. 9, 2022.

The document lists W.S., Bender’s friend, as the landlord and Bender as the tenant. It says the tenant must pay a single installment of $3,000 to the landlord before assuming the residence.

The document makes no reference to the actual landlord of that property, Justin Fox, or his company. The language and format of the document is almost an exact copy of several templates available online.

Fox said during the meeting that he did not know Bender and has never had any knowledge of him living at the house or planning to live at the house.

He confirmed the occupancy limit was three and that the person Bender signed a sublease with was not on the lease.

Bender says he will leave the race if unable to correct forms

Throughout the hearing, Bender continually emphasized he genuinely believed everything he was doing was legal and valid.

As for why he decided to seek residence in the sixth district instead of the fourth district, where his Henderson Street address is, Bender said he felt he represents the student-heavy sixth district more than the fourth district.

Ultimately, Bender said he would leave the race if the candidate filings could not be fixed.

As the meeting concluded, Fernandez said while he doesn’t believe there’s enough evidence for the board to prove Bender knowingly filed a fraudulent report, he thought the board should refer the issue to Monroe County Prosecutor Erika Oliphant. He made a motion, which passed unanimously.

Garletts said he was also concerned about Bender’s candidate eligibility and suggested the case be referred to Attorney General Todd Rokita as well.

“What I do believe, with every ounce of my being, is that you are not a legal candidate,” he said.

Rokita would not be able to make any criminal judgements, Garletts said, but could issue an injunction to pause the candidacy while evidence was considered.

Garletts made a motion, which passed 2-1, with Fernandez voting no.

After the decision, Bender left the room and said he would not comment at this time.

Bender did not respond to an emailed request for comment by publication. The IDS reached out to the person Bender claims to have signed the sublease with but did not receive a response by publication.

Editor’s Note: Bender was previously employed by the Indiana Daily Student.

Patel will serve 546 days, approximately 1 ½ years, of unsupervised probation active May 18, 2023, until Nov. 14, 2024. Patel will not serve jail time. Patel is banned from the IU Bloomington campus.

On Jan. 16, 2022, a female residential assistant was alerted that Patel was allegedly screaming inside his dorm at Union Street Center Birch Hall and went

According to WTHR, Patel told IUPD officers he took two THC-laced gummy bears at a nearby apartment unit before returning to his dorm at Union Street Center. After consuming the gummy bears, Patel told police he felt like he was in a dream, attempting to “have fun” with the residential assistant. He then stated he saw random shapes and two “gangsters” enter his room.

Hamilton Lugar School to host annual language workshops during summer

By Olivia Franklin orfrankl@iu.edu | @livvvvv_5

The Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies will host inperson and online language workshops from the end of May until the end of July. The workshops teach more than 25 languages to 300 students annually, according to the language workshop website.

The workshops will offer eight-week and nine-week immersion programs this summer for undergraduate students, graduate students, high school students and non-students who want to learn languages. The workshop will offer programs for Chinese, Russian and Arabic. During their enrollment in the program, students will only speak the language they are learning while they live, work and eat with other students and faculty.

The workshop also hosts two study abroad programs for students learning Chinese and Hungarian. The Chinese study abroad program will take place overseas and the Hungarian study abroad program will be an online and overseas hybrid program. The school will also offer online workshops for more than 20 languages. Online courses include 20 or more hours of instruction a week depending on the language. According to the schedule for the immersion programs, students enrolled in the nine-week program will move in May 28 and classes will begin on May 30. Students enrolled in the eightweek program will move in June 3 and classes will begin June 5.

The school will host a pizza party and group photo event for students on June 4 from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. in the Global and International Studies Building. Following that, the opening ceremony will take place in the Fine Arts Building from 7:00 to 7:45 p.m. The opening ceremony will include immersion contracts — where students agree to only speak the language they are studying during the program — language pledges and presentations.

The final day of workshop classes will be July 28 followed by a closing ceremony from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Fine Arts Building.

GENTRY JUDGES