Vanderburgh County successfully filed to have a class-action lawsuit against the county dismissed. The suit alleges that the county, while working with local firm ABK Tracking, was extorting those in the court system in a "pay or go to jail" scheme.
This case was filed last year on behalf of two individuals in a class-action lawsuit — William Huggins and Keith Miller along with what County Attorney David Jones calls a "public interest law group" out of Washington DC.
Jones said the county is now vindicated, and describes the “extortion” allegations as offensive.
“And if allegations like that were believed by the people that filed this, they should have gone to the prosecutor, either this state or federal prosecutor. That's an ethical violation for an attorney to do something like that.”
The county filed a motion to dismiss, which was recently accepted. Jones said the next step is suing the law group, Equal Justice under the Law, for legal expenses defending the case. Though right now, Jones isn’t sure how much that was.
“Frankly, as offensive as that complaint was, I would have gone after it for $100 dollars.”
According to the suit, those in the court system were charged exorbitant fees for drug and alcohol testing and electronic monitoring, and if they couldn't pay, they’d go to jail.
Jones said according to case precedent, a county can't be held liable for a judge's act in setting bond.
“The county has nothing to do with decisions that are made as far as probation.”
He said the county itself also has no say over how the county courts operate, and they are simply landlords over the county property the courts use.
“We do not hire, fire, discipline, promote their employees, they have their own employee handbook. They're part of the state judicial system. They're state officials, they're not county officials.”
According to a report by the Courier and Press, County Corrections have has ceased using ABK , but County Judge David Kiely will continue to work with ABK, which is owned by Danny Koester, a friend of Kiely, according to the Courier and Press.
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