Another ‘bad cop,’ this time across the river in Indiana

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By admin

Published: March 15, 2010

HAUBSTADT—There seems to be a rash of ‘bad cop’ charges these days…and Indiana doesn’t seem immune to the rash. But at least they’ve got something for it.

Gibson County—and in particular Haubstadt—seems to be flipping completely out that one of their ‘finest,’ Micah Rulli, has been charged with two counts of Forgery, two counts of Theft by Taking, and one count of Official Misconduct—all felonies.

This happened last week after the Indiana State Police finalized their investigation into allegations against the town marshal (known as a police chief in other quadrants) that he’d been falsifying time sheets with the police department, and helping himself to money that was supposedly stored in the evidence room but wasn’t… and which, authorities alleged, Rulli had an interesting way of obtaining to begin with.

Rulli had been suspended many weeks ago when this came to the attention of the town board, and two weeks ago a deputy marshal, Lloyd Jones, had been appointed interim marshal. The Haubstadt town council called an emergency meeting last Friday afternoon after official charges had been filed against Rulli and he had turned himself in, posted $2,500 bond, and went on his way, to continue his suspension (without pay this time; apparently he’d been collecting it up til then) and officially promote Jones.

It appears that the state has a decent case against Rulli, unlike what Franklin County in Illinois has against Shawn Turner (whose story is featured in this month’s print version, getting on the stands right now as you read this…nothing like real time. But south counties have to wait til Tuesday. Sorry).

While Turner’s charges were just a little too vague, prompting us to examine them more closely, Rulli’s acutally have some details, and they make sense.

Rulli is charged with falsifying time sheets of reserve officers Bruce Vanoven and Jason Wright; authorities claim he added hours they didn’t work, then asked them to give him the extra cash to “use to buy equipment for the department.”

Officer Vanoven, incidentally, resigned his position in Haubstadt over doing this, however, he remains on as a deputy with Gibson County’s sheriff’s department.

ISP found that Vanoven “refused to add to his time sheet for hours he didn’t work, but when he got a paycheck he could tell hours had been added.” Vanoven told investigators that he gave his extra pay to Rulli; Rulli tried to give some of it back to cover taxes; but Vanoven wouldn’t accept it.

When Rulli allegedly tried this a second time, Vanoven “warned Rulli to stop writing down extra time or he would quit.” Rulli agreed but then asked Vanoven “not to tell anyone,” so says an affidavit to that effect filled out by ISP investigator WW George.

If what George is writing is right, Haubstadt had a guy with a real case of the hubris (word not necessarily used correctly, we know, but funny) who told another deputy marshal, Lloyd Jones, that he wouldn’t get in trouble because they “loved Rulli down there (on the town board)” and that Rulli “could get rid of Jones any time.”

Yet another deputy marshal, Wright, confirmed to George that this ‘scheme’ was going on. He said he never knew how much he was going to get ‘padded’ until he got his paycheck. This whole mess had George and the investigators going over county dispatch logs to determine exactly how much time the officers actually worked (logging in/logging out).

As it turned out, there was no actual ‘equipment fund’ for the department. An amount of money, $375, was not found in the evidence room where Rulli told George it was. Rulli, after going home to ‘get a second key to the evidence room,’ did a little shuffling around the office, went to another room, found a box, dumped in a bunch of trash out of a storage bin (no explanation what ‘trash’ was doing in a storage bin) and miraculously found the money in an envelope amongst that ‘trash.

Apparently some of the money was returned to the bilked deputy marshals. But what a lot of gyration to do over $375!!! Dude should have at least asked for a raise first.

Jones was appointed interim town marshal last Friday, and Rulli the unruly made a court appearance today. It’s not lookin good for the goateed fella.

We’ll do a little bit more coverage of this if we can get it, upcoming in the April/May issue, on stands April 14!

Tagged with: Gibson, Haubstadt, Micah Rulli

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