Woman Sentenced for Her Part in Battery Incident

  A woman accused of assisting a suspect in a battery incident at Wythogan Park in Knox in July was sentenced in Starke Circuit Court on Thursday.

Samantha Smith, 19, pleaded guilty in a plea agreement with the state to a charge of assisting a criminal as a Level 6 felony. She drove a car with the battery suspect as a passenger from the scene of the crime. That suspect had struck another teenager in the head. The force of the impact caused the teenager to fall to the ground where his head hit a cement walkway and caused serious injury.

Smith was arrested the next day.

Smith was sentenced to 12 months in the Indiana Department of Corrections. All of the sentence was suspended to be served on probation. She was ordered to participate in all programs recommended by the staff in the probation department. If she successfully completes probation without any violations, she may petition the court for misdemeanor treatment. The state reserves the right to object to the request.

As part of the plea agreement, she is to have no contact with the victim or with the co-defendants in this case.