Photo provided by Brandon Smith, Indiana Public Broadcasting Former Rep. Sean Eberhart speaks during a committee meeting in the legislature.
Authorities and attorneys are declining to say when a former state lawmaker representing part of Bartholomew County will report to prison after being sentenced earlier this month to just over one year behind bars on a corruption charge.
As of Tuesday morning, former state Rep. Sean Eberhart, R-Shelbyville, was not listed in custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, nearly three weeks after being sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison for supporting a bill favoring a casino in exchange for promises of lucrative employment, according to the bureau’s online inmate search tool.
Eberhart, who represented Indiana House District 57 from 2006 to November 2022, was facing up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services fraud last year. The district included the eastern half of Bartholomew County until the district was redrawn following the 2020 U.S. Census.
In his July 12 judgment, U.S. District Judge Matthew P. Brookman did not order Eberhart to report to prison by a certain date but rather that he should surrender to the Federal Bureau of Prisons “as notified by the Probation or Pretrial Services Office.”
Yet 15 days after Eberhart’s July 11 sentencing hearing, a Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman confirmed that Eberhart was not in the bureau’s custody and declined to say when he is scheduled to report to prison or where he will serve his sentence, telling The Republic that “we do not provide specific information on the status of individuals who are not in the custody of the (Federal Bureau of Prisons),” citing the bureau’s policy. The bureau’s spokesman referred The Republic to its online inmate search tool for more information.
When asked on Monday when Eberhart is scheduled to report to prison and where he will report, Chicago attorney Patrick Cotter, one of the former lawmaker’s attorneys, told The Republic, “Mr. Eberhart has no comment in response to your inquiry.”
The Probation and Pretrial Services Office did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.
Earlier this month, Kelsie Clayton, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana, said she did not know when Eberhart would be scheduled to report to prison, telling The Republic that “sometimes the court can delay their report date based on certain circumstances, but typically it is 30 to 60 days.”
The charge against Eberhart stemmed from efforts by Spectacle Entertainment to purchase two casinos on Lake Michigan in Gary and their state licenses and relocate them to inland locations in downtown Gary and Terre Haute, according to federal court filings.
Purchases and relocations of casinos in Indiana must be approved through the passage of a bill by both chambers of the state legislature and signed by the governor.
In 2019, a bill was introduced in the House Committee on Public Policy and later the House floor that would allow Spectacle to purchase the casinos and relocate them.
Eberhart was a member of the House Committee on Public Policy at the time, which had jurisdiction over matters concerning casinos and gaming in Indiana.
Around that time, an owner of Spectacle, identified in court records as “Individual A,” offered Eberhart future employment at Spectacle with an annual salary of $350,000 in exchange for advocating and voting to pass the bill on terms that were favorable to Spectacle.
Those terms included, among other things, reducing the originally proposed $100 million transfer fee that Spectacle would be required to pay to acquire the licenses of the two casinos and favorable tax incentives, court records state. The transfer fee was ultimately reduced to $20 million.
In March 2019, Eberhart advocated for removing the $100 million transfer fee from the bill during a House Committee on Public Policy hearing.
According to coverage by The (Munster) Times in March 2019, Eberhart “questioned the need to attach a $100 million fee” to relocation of the casinos.
“To me that’s a tough one to swallow,” Eberhart is quoted as saying. “That’s an extreme amount of money. If we had a private company, whether that’s a manufacturer or some other private company, come to us and say, ‘Hey, we want to invest $300 million on the Borman in Gary and want to invest $150 million in Terre Haute,’ we’d get out our checkbooks as the state of Indiana. We would be writing them a check. We would be giving them incentives. We would be begging them to make that investment.”
In April 2019, Eberhart communicated with an unidentified individual regarding the status of the bill and efforts to “make it write for (Individual A).” That same month, Eberhart advocated for a 20% tax rate that would save Spectacle tens of millions of dollars.
Court filings include alleged text messages from Eberhart to an unidentified individual in which the former lawmaker states, “We’ve got work to do and 2 casinos to open.”
Eberhart is one of three current or former public officials representing part of Bartholomew County or the surrounding area who have faced criminal charges over roughly the past year.
In June 2023, state Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, received a year of supervised probation and a 180-day suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges for crashing his vehicle through an interstate guardrail while under the influence of alcohol and then fleeing the scene. A Jackson County judge later cut Lucas’ probation short by six months.
In May, former Jackson County Auditor Staci Eglen was arrested and is currently facing nine felonies, including three counts each of fraud, theft and official misconduct, after Indiana State Police accused her of creating fake invoices and submitting them to the county treasurer for reimbursement. A trial date has been scheduled in Jackson Circuit Court for Dec. 3.
