Former Colts Quarterback Tested Four Times Legal Limit, Threatened To Kill Arresting Officer Police Claim

A portable breathalyzer test administered to former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Jack Trudeau during a traffic stop Sunday night for suspicion of drunk driving tested almost four times over the legal limit according to a probable cause affidavit filed by the Zionsville Police Department. That same police report claims Trudeau, 52, threatened to kill the arresting police officer according to the Indianapolis Star.

The portable breath test registered a 0.31 blood-alcohol content, enough to kill a person from alcohol poisoning, but it was considered a poor sample. Trudeau refused to consent to a blood-drawn test and became belligerent towards the officer as he was being transported to the Boone County jail. The police report claimed Trudeau told the officer he was a celebrity and had powerful friends and attorneys.

Trudeau faces several charges, including intimidation of a police officer (Class 6 felony), public intoxication (Class B misdemeanor), operating a vehicle while intoxicated endangering a person (Class A misdemeanor), operating a vehicle while intoxicated (Class C misdemeanor), open containers in passenger compartment (Class B infraction), disregarding a police officer (Class C infraction) and disregarding automatic signal (Class C infraction).

This isn't Trudeau's first brush with the law. In 1987, Trudeau was arrested for striking a police officer during a brawl in a downtown Indianapolis bar. In 1990, he was arrested in Hamilton County for operating a vehicle while intoxicated with a blood-alcohol content of 0.19 and later pleaded guilty to that charge. In 2007, he was accused of hosting a graduation party at his home where alcohol was furnished to minors. He later pleaded guilty to a Class C infraction and paid a $2,500 fine.

Gannett Columnists Worry About A Handful Of Confederate Flag Wavers While Brickyard 400 Dies

Like many NASCAR and IMS fans, I stopped attending the Brickyard 400 several years ago after faithfully attending every race for many years after the inaugural race in 1994. In its hey day, Brickyard 400 crowds rivaled attendance at the Indianapolis 500 in its banner years. By the time I stopped attending, motor sports fan interest in the race had already started to wane. I was looking for stories discussing attendance figures for this year's race in the local news media and came up short. Instead, I found two columns written by Indianapolis Star columnists Gregg Doyel and Suzette Hackney, neither of whom know their ass from first base about auto racing, whose sole purpose in covering this year's race was to find any evidence to support caricaturing NASCAR fans as a bunch of white supremacist, Confederate flag-waving bigots. The kowtowing of NASCAR and IMS officials to the political correctness police as of late probably hasn't helped matters and only served to offend many among its most loyal fan base.

Judging from some of the highlights of the race and the video above a race fan posted to YouTube of the start of this year's race, there were probably fewer people at the track this year than in attendance at a regular season Colts game at Lucas Oil Stadium. A conservative estimate would be 50,000, while IMS officials would probably argue there were closer to 75,000 there. The truth is probably somewhere in between. What can't be argued is that interest in the race is rapidly declining from the earlier years when 200,000 plus fans regularly showed up on race day. The local media did a lot of hyping and cheerleading for the IMS to help bolster interest in this year's race, focusing on the fact local favorite Jeff Gordon was racing his final race at the track this year before he heads into retirement. Gordon won the inaugural race in 1994 and four others along the way, but yesterday he crashed early in the race and finished next to last, perhaps a sign of where this race's future is headed.

Musical Chairs Play Planned In Public Safety When Hogsett Becomes Mayor

Advance Indiana hears that Indianapolis Democratic mayoral candidate Joe Hogsett plans to name Marion Co. Sheriff John Layton as his public safety director when he becomes mayor next year. U.S. Marshal Kerry Forestal, formerly of the Marion Co. Sheriff's Department, is considered a front-runner to be tapped by Democrats to fill the unexpired term of Sheriff Layton. Advance Indiana readers will recall that Sheriff Layton's predecessor, Frank Anderson, stepped down as U.S. Marshal to run for Marion County Sheriff as well. There are also rumblings that Hogsett may look to shift some current Marion County sheriff's deputies to IMPD as part of his plan to hire 150 additional police officers.

UPDATE: The Indianapolis Firefighters local PAC endorsed Hogsett today.

British House Of Lords Ethics Leader Busted In Cocaine-Fueled Romp With Prostittutes

The deputy speaker and chairman of the upper house of British parliament, who also chaired the committee governing ethics standards in the House of Lords, has been caught on video having a sex romp with two female prostitutes while snorting cocaine and wearing a woman's bra. Baron John Sewel, a 69-year old married father of four, told his female companions, "I just want to be led astray." Sewel resigned his leadership position following the damaging revelations and has been suspended from the Labor Party but is said to be resisting calls to resign from the House of Lords. Sewel told the prostitutes there was a "real problem" with members of parliament sleeping with boys. Ironically, Sewell's sex and drug romp took place in a flat located in Dolphin Square, the same building where MPs have been accused of sexually abusing children as part of a VIP pedophile ring. It's too bad the media in this country won't report on similar issues with America's leaders. Apparently you're ineligible for service in Congress unless there are some dark secrets in your life that can be used to blackmail you.  

Police Shootout At Upscale IUPUI Apartment Complex Leaves Five Injured

UPDATED: Fight involved members of IUPUI basketball team. See update below.
If you read or heard about a police shootout early this morning at an apartment complex and thought it was located somewhere in the hood, think again. This happened at The Tyler, an upscale apartment complex in the 1200 block of Indiana Avenue that caters to IUPUI students. This place offers fully-furnished apartments with 9-foot ceilings, private balconies with great city views, a heated saltwater pool, fitness center, clubhouse, computer center and secured parking. Yet early this morning the place turned into a shooting gallery after IMPD officers were called to respond to a party that had grown out of control according to the apartment complex's on-site security. Here's how the Indianapolis Star described a shootout where police shot five individuals:

A party at an apartment building ended with gunfire early Sunday morning, leaving five people wounded on the near Northwestside.

Officers responded to the 1200 block of Indiana Ave. for the report of a disturbance at about 1:18 a.m., police said.

When they arrived, officers heard gunshots coming from inside of the building. About 150 people had gathered there for an unsanctioned party, police said.

Security officers at the apartment building attempted to breakup the gathering when an altercation in one of the units spilled into the hallway.

As IMPD officers approached the party, they were met by armed individuals who fired their weapons at them.

The officers fired back, striking the shooters.

Two people were taken to Eskenazi Hospital from the scene. They are both in stable condition, police said.

Three people involved in the shooting showed up to the hospital a short time later with gunshot wounds. The vehicle they arrived in is in police custody as the investigation is ongoing, police said.

The officers involved will be placed on administrative leave, police said in a release issued at 5:17 a.m. Sunday morning.

WTHR got this response from residents at The Tyler who were not surprised by the shooting given the non-stop party atmosphere at the complex:

"To me, it sounded like 12 or 13 gunshots," Anthony Garcia said Sunday morning standing outside the Tyler Apartment Complex at 1201 Indiana Avenue near the IUPUI campus. He was visiting a friend in the apartment next to where a party was taking place.

"We went out on the balcony, and that is when we heard all the gunshots. At first, we didn't think it was real," Chase Claussen added. "I thought it was fake and then I started seeing single people come out and then they started flooding out. I saw one person sitting on the stairs and he just collapsed." . . . .

"If you were in there, I guess they are making you stay indoors but they are not letting us in there right now. Walking by door six, it looked like there was a lot of blood on the ground," apartment resident Andrew Jerdonek said minutes after the incident occurred.

The morning after, Jennifer McIntyre didn't know what all had transpired the night before but having lived in the Tyler Apartment Complex for the last three years, she's not surprised.

"Pretty much a party atmosphere. There are a lot of kids running around the hallways drinking, smells like weed and other stuff," McIntyre shared . . . 

This is what the people living in downtown neighborhoods like mine can expect in the coming years after the Ballard administration and our City-County Council provided economic development incentives to politically-connected developers to slap up cheaply-built apartment buildings all over the downtown area that are fueling the bar-hopping, drunken madness that now predominates the popular Mass Ave business district, turning it into the evil twin sister of Broad Ripple over night. It doesn't take many incidents like this one to change a neighborhood. By the way, The Tyler is situated in that expanded downtown TIF district that was supposed to transform the nearby northwest side. It's transforming that old industrial neighborhood alright.

The Tyler is owned by New York-based Candlebrook Properties, LLC, which was founded in 2005 by a Donald Trump wannabe, Neil Rubler. Its website says it has over 15,000 apartment units worth more than $2 billion. The Tyler was originally developed by a West Lafayette company, Trinitas Ventures, which sold The Tyler and several other student-related housing projects it has around the country last November to Candlebrook for $230 million. Trinitas is currently building a $40 million, 11-story apartment complex in downtown Indianapolis on the northeast corner of Michigan and Capital Streets.

UPDATED: WTHR's Steve Jefferson spoke to one of The Tyler's residents today and learned the fight over a missing cell phone that led to the fight involved members of the IUPUI basketball team. Jefferson also says it appeared several students were moving out of the complex today after concluding The Tyler was no longer a safe place to live.

UPDATED II: One of the men arrested in this weekend's shooting was Tyrice-Howard Smith, a 20-year old former standout football player for Pike Township High School according to the Star. Police are still trying to identify others involved in the shooting.

More BMV Shady Dealings

The Indianapolis Star's Tony Cook has a good story today about more shady dealings at the BMV. This one involves the agency's former chief of staff, Shawn Walters, who signed a contract with a private company, Express MVA, allowing the company to process vehicle titles for high-volume users and charge their clients convenience fees and then later taking a job as the company's chief operating  officer. Waters sought no opinion on whether his employment by Express MVA violated the state's revolving door law when he took the job in July 2014 after leaving state government.

According to Walters' Linkedin listing, he served as BMV's chief of staff for eight years from 2005 to 2013. After the BMV began getting slapped with class action lawsuits for illegally charging fees to motorists, he transferred to FSSA where he worked as a chief of staff at a salary of $125,000 a year for a little more than a year before taking the top job at Express MVA. Waters was one of the high-level employees made aware of the illegal fees being charged by the agency who did nothing to correct the problem.

According to the Star, the BMV executed the contract with Express MVA allowing it to operate what it described as partial BMV branches offering vehicle title processing services in 2010. The company came into existence solely for the purpose of fulfilling the services the BMV contract allowed it to offer to the public. The BMV provides Express MVA workstations with full access to the BMV's online STARS computer system that is used by BMV employees to process vehicle titles at no extra charge. Express MVA pays nothing to BMV to operate the service, but it is authorized to charge convenience fees to its clients, which would include high-volume users like financial institutions, insurance companies, auction houses and automobile dealers.

Until this year, there was no statute that permitted contractors like Express MVA to collect convenience fees authorized by their contract with the BMV. Walters had personally signed an amended version of the contract with his future employer in 2012. The Indiana General Assembly included a provision in legislation it adopted this year which legalized the imposition of the convenience fees by contractors like Express MVA. Apparently the legislative change was sought by Ice Miller lobbyists on behalf of another BMV contractor, Envirotest, which was providing similar services as those offered by Express MVA. According to the Star, Envirotest charges a $45 fee for the same title transfer service the BMV provides at a charge of $15.

The Star identifies the owners of Express MVA as Kevin Calvert and Doug Pillow. In 2013, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation awarded Express MVA up to $115,000 in tax credits after it promised to create about 20 new jobs at its corporate offices located at 3960 Southeastern Avenue in Indianapolis. Pillow described his company as "the largest automotive title processor in the state, serving more than 1,000 auto dealers, auctioneers and corporations across the state." The press release said the company also provides "several online and software-based services such as Express VLV, which allows auto dealers to check for primary and secondary lien information." The company is exclusively endorsed by the Indiana Automobile Dealers Association. Presumably, it's able to offer those services because of the cost-free access it is granted to the BMV's online computer system under its sweetheart contract.

In an unrelated matter, I noticed Calvert and his father, Edward, had been sued by the National Labor Relations Board under the Fair Debt Collections Procedures Act for a fraudulent transfer. Calvert's father, Edward, operated ELC Electric, Inc., whose business address is the same as Express MVA, According to the lawsuit, ELC laid off 16 employees in retaliation for labor organizing activities by the employees. The NLRB awarded over $435,000 in back pay to the laid off employees. The NLRB then sued both Calverts after it claimed the father fraudulently transferred the assets he owned in ELC, which is now defunct, in order to avoid paying the back pay award to the former employees. At some point, Edward Calvert filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection according to the lawsuit.

In none of the Star reports on this BMV mess do you find anything negative about Gov. Mitch Daniels, who was responsible for allowing the Keith Bulen-styled racketeering operations to flourish during his two terms as Indiana's governor. These people believe government only exists for their self-profiteering purposes. Gov. Mike Pence's sin was in not cleaning house when he became governor. It's almost as if there was never any change in the person occupying the governor's office. Pence is just an empty suit letting Mitch Daniels' cronies continue operating the state as their own personal profit centers.

British VIP Pedophile Ring Now Openly Reported

As shocking as it may sound, the most powerful people in British society have been operating and covering up a VIP pedophile ring of the most vile order involving top members of the government's cabinet, members of parliament, top intelligence officials, judges and law enforcement officials for many decades. The victims were children placed in the custody of the government's child protection services. Instead of protecting children in the state's custody, they were trafficked for the sexual pleasure of the sick and twisted leaders of the British government.

For decades, persons claiming the existence of this VIP pedophile ring were ostracized and marginalized by the mainstream media as wacko conspiracy theorists, but now the findings of official government reports are confirming the worst. Some of the children were murdered or have been disappeared. Some of the survivors are speaking out about the lurid details of their ordeal. And the mainstream media in Britain is finally reported what whistle blowers have struggled for years to make public as in this 60 Minutes report shown above that aired in Britain this past week.

A similar, equally as vast VIP pedophile ring has operated with impunity within the United States for the benefit of our nation's most powerful persons for decades. Most mainstream media refused to discuss the Franklin Scandal, a pedophile ring based in Omaha, Nebraska that procured young children from homes like Boys Town intended to protect at-risk children, kidnapped them from the neighborhoods where they live across America or, in some cases, obtained them from their parents who sacrificed their own children to a higher order. The Franklin Scandal that first broke in the 1980s revealed that young boys were taken to Washington, D.C. to have sex with cabinet officials, members of Congress, governors, judges and, according to some reports, even then-Vice President George H.W. Bush. Their handlers even took the trafficked boys on midnight tours of the White House.

I-Team 8 Investigation Catches Angie's List Issuing Flawed Ratings For Bad Contractors

Imagine, an investigative reporter for WISH-TV's I-Team 8 takes a look at how Angie's List rates contractors and catches it scoring bad contractors higher than what its consumer members actually rated them. It turns out a contractor who took money from a consumer but never performed the work wasn't being scored an "F" because its rating system didn't consider the work done. Angie Hicks says the company plans to make changes to its online rating system within the next ten days to address the problem to ensure that companies receive a failing grade when they take money from the customer but fail to do the work. So it only took them 20 years to figure out this flaw in their rating system?

Who Owns A Beneficial Interest In BlueIndy, LLC?

Now that we know Mayor Greg Ballard and members of his administration broke multiple state and local laws in order to award a 15-year, one-sided agreement with BlueIndy, LLC to operate an electric car sharing service under an exclusive arrangement at a cost of millions of dollars to Indianapolis taxpayers, it's time for City-County Council members to step up and demand the release of the names of every person or business entity that has a beneficial interest in the company.

BlueIndyLLC was registered as a limited liability company with the Indiana Secretary of State's office by the law firm of Ice Miller on March 18, 2014, listing attorney Michael Millikan as its registered agent at Ice Miller's Indianapolis offices at One American Square. The filing indicates the company has managers. The front person for the company is Herve Muller, who is listed as the company's president. Muller's LinkedIn listing associates him with the Greater Atlanta area. Muller has served as vice president and general manager for Bollore Group's Blue Solutions since 2007, which is part of IER Group.

When BlueIndy, LLC applied for an encroachment license, which the Ballard administration granted the company to illegally park its cars on Washington Street, Muller listed the business address for BlueIndy, LLC as 1000 Industrial Park, Belton, Texas. The fees for that encroachment license totaling $30,576.00 were waived by the City. Why?

Last night, the Public Works Committee of the City-County Council approved a resolution on a 5-1 vote that requests the towing of Blue Indy's electric cars that are illegally parked in a no parking zone on Washington Street where they've been sitting for more than a year now. The City-County Council's attorney, Fred Biesecker, maintains the City lacked legal authority to permanently convert the no parking zone for Blue Indy's exclusive, for-profit use. The company plans to establish 1,000 parking spaces at 200 sites around the City for its electric car sharing business, many of which the Ballard administration has taken from the City's current public, on-street parking stock.

At some point, the City could be forced to give up much of the revenues it currently receives from Park Indy, the private company owned by ACS/Xerox that operates the City's parking meter assets, for its loss of revenues caused by the administration's decision to give those parking spaces to Blue Indy. Mayor Ballard raided $6 million from the parking meter fund into which those revenues are deposited to give to Blue Indy. Prime parking spaces have already been taken out of service in downtown, Broad Ripple and Fountain Square where power charging stations are being installed even though the City has not formally inked its agreement with Blue Indy. As of this week, the City's controller had still not signed the contract a deputy chief of staff in the mayor's office, David Rosenberg, signed with the company. How could all of these parking spaces have already been taken out of service and construction work commenced on the permanent infrastructure to support Blue Indy's for-profit business when the final agreement has not been signed, sealed and delivered?

UPDATE: You have to read this idiotic column by one of the Star's newer columnists, Suzette Hackney, who thinks it's silly for anyone to get worked up about all of the laws the administration has broken to benefit Blue Indy because it represents "cutting edge" technology and "trendsetting." Where does Gannett find so many journalists who are willing to pimp for crony capitalism? This gal might actually be worse than Erika Smith, if that's possible.

. . . So why all the controversy, political fighting and posturing? It seems silly that members of the City-County Council are stomping all over Mayor Greg Ballard's alternative-transportation initiative this late in the game. The mayor's desire to make the city more environmentally friendly appears sincere. Any concerns the councilors had with the program should have been raised long before now.

And any serious misgivings certainly have been negated by the councilors' threat to have some of the demonstration cars towed from the charging station on Washington Street. They were actually willing to stage a committee vote for that? How petty and embarrassing, especially in a city that revels in its reputation and time in the national spotlight . . .

But the benefits of car-sharing outweigh the hurt feelings some may have. It is unreasonable for the council to try to delay the implementation of the program with a burdensome franchise agreement, which would allow the body to charge a yearly fee for the length of the agreement and give oversight on future expansion. I don't believe they want oversight; they want to ensnarl the program in so much red tape that the cars are put back in the garage, so to speak.

But I want to live in city that is on the cutting edge of technology and trendsetting. I desire a city that attracts young professionals who want to live and work here, and feel comfortable doing so without owning a car. I want a city that enhances the quality of life for empty nesters who are moving back to the city from the suburbs.

Indianapolis could be all of that. Let's get these cars on the road.