Former Starke County Sheriff’s Department employee Adam Gray was sentenced in La Porte County Superior Court 2 Friday, September 8 after pleading guilty in a plea agreement with the State to two counts of official misconduct as a Level 6 Felony.
Adam Gray, 52, of Knox, was indicted on eight charges in 2022 following a lengthy investigation by the Indiana State Police Criminal Investigation Division Lowell Post.
Indiana State Police say evidence and testimony were presented to a Grand Jury concerning missing evidence from the Starke County Sheriff’s Department.
Gray was originally indicted on four counts of official misconduct as a Level 6 Felony, two counts of theft as a Class A Misdemeanor, and dealing paraphernalia and dealing marijuana, both as Class A Misdemeanors.
In a plea hearing held Friday, May 5, Gray pleaded guilty to two counts of official misconduct as a Level 6 Felony. At that hearing, Judge Richard Stalbrink, Jr. took the plea under advisement.
During Friday’s hearing, Gray’s Attorney James Woods and Special Prosecutor Stanley Levco recommended that the judge accept the plea agreement due to the complexity of the investigation in this case as a whole. Woods stated that Gray had admitted to investigators from the beginning that he did take $5.00 from cash seized as evidence, but he later returned those funds. He also admitted from the beginning that he took a glass pipe for marijuana use out of the trash from an evidence area at the Sheriff’s Department and gave it to another person. He has denied any other allegation in the investigation.
The judge agreed that the case is complex and agreed with both attorneys in their recommendations to accept the plea agreement.
Per the terms of that agreement negotiated between Woods and Levco, on both counts of official misconduct as a Level 6 Felony, Gray was sentenced to nine months in the Starke County Justice Center with all of that sentence to be suspended. Six months of that suspended sentence will be served on Starke County Community Corrections home detention with three months to be served on probation. Gray will need to comply with programs set forth by Starke County Court Services and cooperate with the Indiana State Police by providing statements in this case. Both sentences will be served concurrently, or at the same time.
