Nugent
COLUMBUS, Ind. — A charge of battery against the Elizabethtown clerk-treasurer has been dropped.
Shirley Nugent, 50, was taken to jail after Monday’s Elizabethtown town council meeting. Nugent said a sheriff’s deputy determined there was evidence that Nugent may have caused a red mark on the back of Brandy Brown, the wife of Elizabethtown town council member Levi Brown.
But the office of Bartholomew County prosecutor Lindsey Holden-Kay didn’t reach the same conclusion.
“The case has been reviewed by my office and it was determined that there was insufficient evidence to file charges against Ms. Nugent,” Holden-Kay wrote Wednesday in response to an inquiry from The Republic.
Nugent released a video that she said presents the incident in question. While the video appears to show a group of women leaving the town hall, it does not show the faces of the women as they were speaking.
A female voice is first heard saying “you can’t be weighing in on something you weren’t there for. You can’t be a witness for something you were not there for.”
As the women began speaking over each other, a voice could be heard stating “Oh yeah, you’re hitting me.”
A loud voice suddenly exclaimed that “Brandy is hitting me! Brandy is hitting me!” That prompted another woman to say she was calling police.
The video briefly shows a woman stopping to look at her cellphone before the camera veers off without showing anyone.
Another female voice with a calm tone can be heard. “Nope. She just … nope … uh-uh … I’ll have a mark on my back. Take a picture.”
While Levi Brown alleges that Nugent had struck his wife, the video does not show any person striking another.
It was the latest episode in a feud mostly on social media between the clerk-treasurer and the Browns that records indicate goes back to at least October 2021.
Nugent filed a civil lawsuit on March 22, 2022 in Bartholomew Circuit accusing the Browns of defamation of character. A mediation agreement dated Aug. 25, 2023 was filed that states the Browns had agreed to refrain from making certain negative accusations against the clerk-treasurer.
The Browns also made a public acknowledgment that Nugent has never been charged with any crime involving children. The same agreement orders Nugent to stop making public statements about Levi Brown’s criminal history.
Item #5 stipulates that Nugent and the Browns are to have no contact with each other.
“If Levi Brown is elected on the Town Board, then (Nugent) and Levi Brown may only have contact with each other in their official capacity,” the agreement stated.
