For some people, politics and corruption go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Yet, for others, it seems that Indianapolis has mostly been free of the major political scandals that have historically rocked cities such as Chicago, Detroit and New York.
These people may have been surprised by an increasing number of cases involving blatant corruption among current and former city officials.
What has been even more disturbing for some observers is that some of the accused are African-American. If guilty, did these officials squander opportunities to serve with integrity in positions that historically were seldom granted to minorities?
“We wait and wait for decades to make it into certain offices,” said New York based national political consultant Basil Smikle. “Then they get squandered in a moment. And a lot of folks look at that and say, we were not ready for prime time.”
Smikle cited the case of New York state Sen. Shirley Huntley, who was recently sentenced to a year in prison for embezzlement and bribery.
The City of Indianapolis has fired two officials, Reggie Walton and John Hawkins, who are both with the Indy Land Bank, which acquires abandoned and tax-delinquent properties and sells them to developers.
Federal prosecutors announced last week that Walton and Hawkins had been indicted on federal wire fraud charges. An eight-count indictment alleges they received bribes and kickbacks from the sale of properties to nonprofits for as little as $1,000 apiece.
Three other people connected with property buyers have also been charged in the alleged scheme.
Walton had been the Department of Metropolitan Development’s assistant administrator of abandoned buildings and Hawkins was the department’s special projects manager.
Federal officials say that early last month, Walton used his position as director of the city’s abandoned-building program to transfer a vacant, city-owned house at 3959 Carrollton Ave. to the Indiana Minority AIDS Coalition.
Walton is accused of getting a $7,500 kickback after allowing the coalition to sell the property to a for-profit company that could make substantial revenue from it.
The indictment of Walton and Hawkins came a short time after former City-County Council member Paul Bateman was sentenced to 27 months in prison with three years on supervised release after pleading guilty to fraud charges.
Bateman admitted in a federal court that he had “lost his moral compass” and pleaded guilty in January to 13 counts of money laundering and fraud. He was accused of using a charitable foundation to defraud an investor, who was a local doctor, out of $1.7 million.
Both the Land Bank indictment and Bateman’s situation were handled by the office of U.S. Attorney Joe Hogsett, who says corruption has increasingly become an issue of concern in the Indianapolis metropolitan area. He has pledged to aggressively go after officials, regardless of political affiliation, who are suspected of using their position to break the law. Currently his office is working with the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Postal Service and other agencies to crack down on corruption in public offices.
“If you violate the public trust, this group will find and investigate you,” Hogsett said.
This week, phone calls made to Ryan Vaughn, chief of staff for the mayor’s office about what is being done to prevent future corruption cases were not returned by press time.
Maggie Lewis, president of the Indianapolis City-County Council and leader of its Democratic majority, could not be reached at press time. However, in a earlier statement she said, “This investigation is ongoing and we still don’t know all of the details. We support the work of the U.S. Attorney to weed out corruption and commend his efforts to protect the best interests of the people.”
