WEDNESDAY November 27, 2013
Library Facilities offer food for fines program Page A2
Commentary
Boys Hoops
Something fishy, stinky at the folks’ house
Chargers win opener vs. EN
Page B4
Page B1
Weather Snow is possible today with a high of 30 and a low of 20. Slightly warmer on Thanksgiving. Page A6 Serving Noble & LaGrange Counties
Kendallville, Indiana
GOOD MORNING Ex-Indianapolis cop gets 13 years in death FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — A former Indianapolis police officer who killed a man and seriously injured two others when he was driving drunk and crashed his police cruiser into two motorcycles stopped at a traffic light was sentenced Tuesday to 13 years in prison. David Bisard was convicted last month on nine counts, the most serious of which was driving with a blood-alcohol content above 0.15 percent while in a fatal accident. The legal limit in Indiana is 0.08. He resigned Monday from the police department. He had been suspended without pay since the 2010 crash that killed 30-year-old Eric Wells.
kpcnews.com
Molester sentenced to 30 years BY BOB BRALEY bbraley@kpcmedia.com
ALBION — A former Kendallville man was sentenced Tuesday in Noble Superior Court I to 30 years in prison for two counts of child molesting. Superior Court Judge Robert Kirsch ruled John Aaron Barnhart, 34, of Fort Wayne is a credit-restricted felon, so Barnhart will serve nearly 85 percent of that sentence even with credit for good behavior. Without the credit restriction, Barnhart would be able to receive one day of credit for good behavior for every day served in prison. Under the credit restriction, he will get credit for only one out of every six days served.
Barnhart was found guilty of two Class A felony counts of child molesting and one count of possession of marijuana, a Class A misdemeanor, in a jury trial Oct. 31. Noble County chief public defender James Abbs asked that Kirsch consider as factors to lessen his client’s sentence that he had only one prior Barnhart misdemeanor offense, that incarceration will be a hardship on his family and that four letters of support for Barnhart were filed with the court, including three by
family members who were in the courtroom Tuesday. Noble County Prosecutor Steven T. Clouse asked Kirsch to declare Barnhart a sexually violent predator and a credit-restricted felon due to the young age of the victim at the time of the crime. She was younger than 14 years old when the offense was committed. Clouse recommended Barnhart be sentenced to 50 years in prison for each felony, with those sentences to be served at the same time, and one year for the misdemeanor, to be served back-to-back with the other sentences. “To this point, the defendant has shown zero remorse,” Clouse said. “When children are harmed,
KENDALLVILLE — Government offices in Kendallville, Ligonier, Avilla and Rome City and Noble County government offices will be closed Thursday and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday. Cromwell municpal offices will be closed Thursday. State offices will be closed Thursday and Friday. Trash pickup by National Serv-All will be delayed a day.
The News Sun P.O. Box 39, 102 N. Main St. Kendallville, IN 46755 Telephone: (260) 347-0400 Fax: (260) 347-2693 Classifieds: (toll free) (877) 791-7877 Circulation: (260) 347-0400 or (800) 717-4679
Index
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Classifieds.................................B7-B8 Life..................................................... A5 Obituaries......................................... A4 Opinion .............................................B4 Sports.........................................B1-B3 Weather............................................ A6 TV/Comics .......................................B6 Vol. 104 No. 327
SEE MOLEST, PAGE A6
BY BOB BRALEY bbraley@kpcmedia.com
the LaGrange County Jail without bond since her Nov. 12 arrest for possession of methamphetamine and maintaining a common nuisance. Shaffer was arrested after she failed a probation department drug test that revealed she had trace amounts of amphetamine and methamphetamine in her system, LaGrange County
ALBION — The Albion Town Council Tuesday unanimously approved on first reading a new salary ordinance that grants a raise to town employees. The ordinance will give a $1,000 flat raise to most full-time employees and a 25-cents-per-hour raise for part-time employees. Academy-trained police officers’ pay range will increase to between $15-$17 per hour. Two changes were made to the ordinance. Mileage for work would be reimbursed at the state, rather than federal, mileage rate. The current state rate is about 80 percent of the federal rate. Also, a one-time specialty payment of $200 for licenses and certifications earned would have to be approved by the council. Currently it does not. The council will vote on the second reading of the ordinance at its Dec. 10 meeting. Also Tuesday, the council: • learned that Councilman Mitch Fiandt will not seek a fourth term on the council when his current term is up next year. Fiandt said he decided not to run for re-election because of his and his family’s activities with the Albion Fire Department in light of recent rulings about nepotism. He is 18 months from having served on the department for 40 years, he
SEE PRISON, PAGE A6
SEE ALBION, PAGE A6
State’s auditor resigning
Info •
our society should not give a chance to harm children again. What he has done to that child is unimaginable. He should be locked up for as long as possible.” Kirsch found that Barnhart was a sexually violent predator and credit-restricted felon. He cited Barnhart’s limited criminal history and the hardship on his family as mitigating factors to the sentence, but said there were several aggravating factors as well. As making the offense worse, Kirsch cited prior allegations of sexual abuse against Barnhart in Ohio, that Barnhart was in a position of trust with the victim, the victim’s young age and that Barnhart committed the offense
Albion proposes wage increase
City, county offices closed for holiday
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s state auditor is resigning just a few months after taking office. The governor’s office announced Tuesday that Republican Auditor Dwayne Sawyer had submitted his resignation from the statewide office effective Dec. 15. Gov. Mike Pence had appointed the former Brownsburg Town Council president to the office in August after picking then-auditor Tim Berry as the new Indiana Republican Party chairman. Sawyer’s resignation letter cites unspecified family and personal concerns for stepping down.
75 cents
PATRICK REDMOND
Christy Shaffer, 35, of Topeka, approaches the LaGrange County Courthouse Tuesday morning escorted by LaGrange County Sheriff Terry
Martin, left, and two deputies from the LaGrange County Sheriff’s Department.
Topeka woman faces probation violation, possible return to prison BY PATRICK REDMOND predmond@kpcmedia.com
LAGRANGE — Christy Shaffer sat all alone at the defendant’s table in the LaGrange County Circuit Courtroom Tuesday morning, her legs crossed, nervously kicking her left foot, knowing that if the court so decides, she could be returned to an Indiana prison cell to finish a
lengthy prison sentence. After Shaffer was arrested earlier this month on two drug-related charges, the LaGrange County Probation Department filed paperwork with the court saying Shaffer had violated the terms of her probation for her 2011 conviction for neglect in the death of 16-month-old Alissa Guernsey. Shaffer, 35, has been held in
Penny Lane is Gitmo’s second secret facility WASHINGTON (AP) — A few hundred yards from the administrative offices of the Guantanamo Bay prison, hidden behind a ridge covered in thick scrub and cactus, sits a closely held secret. A dirt road winds its way to a clearing where eight small cottages sit in two rows of four. They have long been abandoned. The special detachment of Marines that once provided security is gone. But in the early years after 9/11, these cottages were part of a covert CIA program. Its secrecy has outlasted black prisons, waterboarding and rendition. In these buildings, CIA officers turned terrorists into double agents
Bethlehem the Day after
Christ
was born
This Sept. 2, 2010, satellite image provided by TerraServer. com and DigitalGlobe shows a portion of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including the secret facility known as Penny Lane, upper middle in white.
and sent them home. It was a risky gamble. If it worked, their agents might help the CIA find terrorist leaders to kill with drones. But officials knew there was a chance that some prisoners might quickly spurn their deal and kill Americans. For the CIA, that was an acceptable risk in a dangerous business. For the American public, which was never told, it was one of the many secret trade-offs the government made on its behalf. At the same time the government used the threat of terrorism to justify imprisoning people indefinitely, it was releasing dangerous people from SEE CIA, PAGE A6
DECEMBER 7 & 8, 2013 • 1:00 - 5:00 P.M. A Walk-Through Drama • Our 24th Year Cast of over 200 • All Indoors • Thousands have walked these streets. NO ADMISSION CHARGE What Others Have Said About Bethlehem Marketplace: ❖ I have been to Jerusalem and this is the closest experience to the old city of Jerusalem I have ever seen. ❖ 4 Stars and 2 thumbs up. ❖ A living history lesson. ❖ You enter into another time and world when you walk those streets.
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I have never experienced anything like this before. Rated PG; some of it is too realistic for kids. This must have been what it was like in Biblical times. One of the Tri-State area’s most dramatic presentations of the Christmas story. ❖ I am bringing my whole church next year. They have to experience this.
AP
Fairview Missionary Church Phone: 260-665-8402 www.fairview-missionary.org
525 E 200 N, Angola, IN (1 mile east of Meijer and Menards)