There’s Just Something about Linda Pence

Linda Pence has built her campaign to be Indiana’s next attorney general on her supposed skills as a lawyer and, most recently, on her claims that she will fight corruption more vigorously than Steve Carter has or Greg Zoeller will.

Her skills as a lawyer were not enough to save her client from having to make a $625,000 settlement with Carter’s AG office; it would seem that she is not a better lawyer than Zoeller (Steve Carter’s chief deputy) after all.

Her protestations that she will fight corruption sort of ring hollow when compared to how she tried to hide from Hoosiers her work for a codefendant in the East Chicago sidewalks for votes RICO case, the most notable corruption case in Indiana this decade.

Then she went to the Chicago offices of Greenberg Traurig, the former law firm of a certain convicted corrupt lobbyist by the name of Jack Abramoff, to raise money for her election campaign.

Pence then went on to say that she could not talk about the East Chicago RICO case, because of attorney-client privilege. It turned out that her client waived attorney-client privilege as a part of its settlement with the AG’s office.

Linda Pence has even put forward some rather comical quotes.

(Read more after the leap)

“I never hid anything in my life,” she “indignantly” told the Indianapolis Star several weeks ago in response to questions about the East Chicago case.

This was the same article in which she said that she could not talk about the case due to attorney-client privilege. As noted above, that privilege was waived as a part of her client’s settlement, a settlement she signed.

But, as it always does with Linda Pence, things just keep getting better.

The East Chicago sidewalks-for-votes scandal is just the most infamous public corruption cases in Indiana in the past decade.

Perhaps among the most notable example of public corruption in the prior decade was the abuse of public money from Frank O’Bannon’s “Build Indiana” fund.

The Indianapolis Star had an interesting investigation of where the money from the Build Indiana fund was going. They estimated that, between 1997 and 1999, over $40 million in Build Indiana funds went to projects that violated the law.

The Star’s investigation found, for example, that $445,000 in Build Indiana money went to a “Baptist Women’s Shelter” put in the budget by Senator Sam Smith (D, East Chicago).

The only problem? There never was such a shelter, and the church to which the money was supposed to go (Build Indiana money wasn’t even allowed to go to churches) never could explain where it actually went:

The Baptist Women’s Shelter — a project coordinated by Second Baptist Church of East Chicago and put in the budget by Sen. Sam Smith, D-East Chicago — shows everything that’s wrong with how the Build Indiana Fund works.

The money — $445,000 — went to a church group, not a government entity as specified in the law.

The women’s shelter was never built, even though four checks for the Baptist Women’s Shelter were sent out in January and March 2000. That violated the terms of the grant agreement, which requires recipients to use the money for an approved project.

The first check, for $300,000, was mailed to Second Baptist Church of East Chicago and endorsed by that church’s pastor, Lee Gilliam. The three other checks — totaling $145,000 — went to Mount Hermon Baptist Church, where Smith is a member.

The organization never filed a report with the State Board of Accounts, as required by law.

Gilliam acknowledges that there is no women’s shelter, saying the money was instead used for a men’s shelter…

But Gilliam has made contradictory statements about the location of the men’s shelter and how the money was used. According to invoices that Gilliam turned in to the state, construction work on a shelter took place in 1999.

Gilliam initially told The Star that the money was used to buy and fix up a warehouse that formerly housed a soda pop distributor. When pressed for the exact location of the shelter, he gave the address of a house on a residential street near his church. But Lake County tax records show that house is owned by a couple not affiliated with the church.

Gilliam and Smith never could get the story straight on the Baptist Women’s Shelter.

They ended up having a variety felony charges brought against them by Marion County Prosecutor Scott Newman:

The news that made headlines from the seminar was felony charges being filed against state Sen. Sam Smith, an East Chicago Democrat, and his friend Lee Charles Gilliam, a church pastor.

Gilliam is accused of diverting $445,000 in public tax money from Build Indiana grants intended for a battered women’s shelter that prosecutors say never existed, and spending more than $350,000 of it on himself and his family.

Prosecutors say Gilliam used the money to buy fur coats and clothes, make lease payments on a Ford Expedition and Cadillac, pay for trips and hotel stays, rent cars, purchase 15 pairs of cowboy boots and throw a $3,000 dinner to celebrate his wedding anniversary.

They say he bought three buildings, rented out rooms and opened a for-profit grocery store that never paid sales taxes. Jack Crawford, Gilliam’s attorney, says his client is innocent of all charges.

Smith arranged the grant as a state senator but was not charged for how it was allegedly spent. Nevertheless, he faces seven felony counts for allegedly failing to pay income taxes, not enough sales taxes on services from his funeral home, and lying to the state about how much he owed.

Apparently, Smith’s tax situation somehow “came to light” while Gilliam was being investigated.

One can’t help wondering how that happened. How exactly do investigations of a shady Build Indiana project lead to felony tax charges being filed against a state senator? The world wonders.

Smith later pled down those charges to a misdemeanor. Last year, he resigned from his senate seat, attributing his decision to wanting to expand his family’s funeral home business, and urged that his wife Diane replace him.

Party leaders balked at selecting Smith’s wife, so he changed his mind about resigning; his wife got thumped in the May primary.

Anyhow, this is a post about Linda Pence.

Guess who was Sam Smith’s attorney when the Marion County Prosecutor came calling with those felony charges?

You guessed right, everyone’s favorite AG candidate:

[Smith's] attorney, Linda Pence, said she is confident the matter will be resolved in a positive manner for the senator.

I guess, if pleading felony charges down to a misdemeanor and not being able to get reelected is resolving the matter “in a positive manner,” then Pence was successful for Senator Sam Smith.

Another shady Lake County politician in trouble with the law, and Linda Pence was there to defend him.

One more fun quote from Linda Pence:

“I am against public corruption,” she proclaimed after her involvement to the sidewalks-for-votes case became public.

That’s a claim that’s rather hard to swallow given how she seems to be involved in representing so many defendants that are somehow involved in or linked to public corruption cases.

It seems like every time there’s a case involving shady doings in Lake County, Linda Pence is never far away.

Why would we want anyone with a record like that to be Indiana’s next attorney general?