Photo provided by Brandon Smith, Indiana Public Broadcasting Former Rep. Sean Eberhart speaks during a committee meeting in the legislature.
A former state lawmaker representing part of Bartholomew County who reported to federal prison last week after pleading guilty to a corruption charge is projected to be released about two months early via a good conduct time release.
Former state Rep. Sean Eberhart, R-Shelbyville, is scheduled to be released June 28, 2025, which is 10 months and 6 days after reporting to federal prison to serve 1 year and a day behind bars for supporting a bill favoring a casino in exchange for promises of lucrative employment, according to records with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
While the Federal Bureau of Prisons declined to discuss specific release plans for Eberhart, a spokesman said the former lawmaker’s projected release date is based on a good conduct time release, which is a system that allows inmates to earn a reduction in their sentences based on, among other criteria, good behavior while incarcerated.
Inmates convicted of a federal offense committed after Nov. 1, 1987, as well as individuals who were convicted of District of Columbia Code felony offenses committed on or after Aug. 5, 2000, are eligible to earn up to 54 days per year of good conduct time, according to the Federal Bureau of Prison’s website.
“For privacy, safety and security reasons we do not discuss any incarcerated individual’s conditions of confinement or specific release plans,” said Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Benjamin O’Cone, who also pointed to the general requirements of good conduct time release.
Eberhart, who was sentenced in July, arrived this past Thursday at the Federal Correctional Institution in Manchester, Kentucky, located about 75 miles south of Lexington, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The facility is described by the Federal Bureau of Prisons as a medium-security federal correctional institution with an adjacent minimum-security satellite camp. There are 980 inmates being held at the medium-security prison and 87 at the minimum-security camp.
Eberhart is currently being held at the minimum-security camp, Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Randilee Giamusso told The Republic on Friday. Inmates at the camp are housed in dormitories divided into two-person cubicles, according to Zoukis Consulting Group, which claims to have profiled every federal prison.
The medium-security prison also has held some notable inmates over the years, including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who is currently serving his 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack at the facility.
Eberhart, who represented Indiana House District 57 from January 2006 to November 2022, was sentenced in July to one year and one day in federal prison for supporting a bill favoring a casino in exchange for promises of lucrative employment.
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 right 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 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.”
