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Former city-county councilor sentenced to 40 months

IL and IBJ Staff
December 2, 2011
Keywords
Central Indiana, Court opinions, Courts, District Courts, Government, Indianapolis, Marion County, Practice areas, Regional News
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U.S. Senior Judge Larry McKinney on Thursday sentenced former Indianapolis City-County Councilor Lincoln Plowman to 40 months in federal prison for attempted extortion and bribery.

A jury found Plowman guilty in September of using his official position to collect $6,000 in exchange for his help in getting zoning approval for a proposed strip club.

Plowman, also a former Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department major, faced up to 30 years in prison and $500,000 in fines resulting from both convictions, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana had recommended a 6 ½ year prison sentence.

But after the court received several letters from friends and family asking for leniency – probation rather than a lengthy prison term – the federal judge imposed a 3.3 year prison sentence in a bench ruling. McKinney also ordered that Plowman serve two years of supervised release following his incarceration. McKinney imposed no fines because of the financial condition of Plowman's family. The convicted official will begin his sentence after Jan.1 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute.

A grand jury indicted Plowman in September 2010. From August to December of 2009, the indictment said, Plowman solicited an undercover FBI agent to pay him $5,000 in cash and make a $1,000 campaign contribution in exchange for help with strip club zoning. Evidence at trial showed Plowman had previously accepted bribes from an existing strip club that was part of a national chain, in exchange for votes to influence legislation to ban smoking at Indianapolis clubs.

Though prosecutors had asked for a longer sentence, U.S. Attorney Joe Hogsett said he was satisfied with the judge’s decision.

“(The) sentencing serves as a warning throughout Indianapolis and across Indiana that our public offices are not for sale,” Hogsett said. “Although this tragedy saddens us all, it would be an even greater tragedy if such violations of the public trust went undiscovered and unpunished.”
 


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  1. G. Michael Witte letter states he's suspended for three years. The case that got him suspended is identical to my estate case, including havin the Late Judge Deiter recuse himself because Newman had a conflict of interest with the judge. His Modus Operandi is nearly identical.

  2. SIGNED BY G. MICHAEL WITTE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY INDIANA SUPREME COURT DISCIPLINARY COMMISSION DATED MAY 17, 2012.

    Your 6th complaint against Lawrence T. Newman filed on 4/12/2012. On 1/31/12, the Indiana Supreme Court entered an order suspending Lawrence T. Newman’s law license for a period of three years. More important, even after three years, Lawrence Todd Newman will not get his license back unless and until he goes through a separate proceeding to prove that he is fit to practice law. This is not an easy process, and the burden is upon Lawrence T. Newman to prove by clear and convincing evidence that he is fit to return to practice.
    Because of the length of Lawrence T. Newman’s license suspension and the fact he may never succeed in getting his law license reinstated, we are not opening an investigation file at this time.
    Should Lawrence T. Newman seek reinstatement in the future, we will open your file and ask Lawrence T. Newman to address your grievance as part of his burden of proving fitness. We have attempted to notify Lawrence T. Newman that this will be required of him.
    It may disappoint you to hear that we will be doing nothing on your grievance at this time. However, the most our office can ever accomplish is to take away a lawyer’s license to practice law. We have already done that, albeit as a result of misconduct in cases other than your own. It makes better sense for our office to focus its limited resources on cases where the lawyers are still actively practicing law.

  3. Is there any justice in the Marion County Superior Court Civil Division? I am the unfortunate victim of a retaliatory lawsuit brought by Lawrence Todd Newman, the attorney from an estate case on which I worked as a unsupervised personal representative in 2006. The contract agreement for that case stated that the estate would be responsible for all attorney fees, but Newman refused to close the nearly insolvent estate when my duties were complete and his fees were paid. Instead, he tried to extort additional attorney fees from me by keeping the case open to address a wrongful death claim, despite the estate’s heir’s lack of interest in pursuing it and an expert doctor’s opinion that it would not be worth doing so. He also knowingly deceived me into believing that a “closing statement” was needed to close the estate, even though this requirement had actually been waived by the estate’s heir. The heir’s attorney filed a motion to have Newman removed from the case. After the court closed the probate case with prejudice (barred from further litigation) Newman illegally re-opened the case in another courtroom.
    As a result of complaints filed against him for these and similar actions, Newman has been suspended from practicing law for 18 months by the Indiana Disciplinary Commission. In retaliation, he has filed suit against me demanding additional attorney fees for the 2006 estate case, despite the fact that I made no agreement stating that I would pay any fees from my own assets on behalf of the estate. This lawsuit violates the rules of ethics, due process of law, and equal protection of law. Newman has been allowed to file ridiculous pleadings at an alarming rate and has been supported by a biased court system. Judge Carroll refuses to recuse himself from the case despite the fact that, by his own admission, he intends to grant Newman sanctions regardless of the evidence. When my former counsel discovered that the previous judge on the case, Judge Sosin, was a long-time close friend of Newman’s family, Judge Carroll commented for the record during a hearing that Judge Sosin in so many words “he finds the door “was weak for recusing himself from the case as a result of this obvious conflict of interest.
    This case is a public policy issue. Statutes put in place to protect unsupervised personal representatives in probate matters are being ignored. This case will affect thousands of individuals involved in probating and the personal representation of estates. Justice cannot possibly be served as long as a biased judge is allowed to defend a “vexatious litigant,” as Newman has been described by Judge Logan in Bradenton, Florida court. If there is any justice in the Marion County Superior Court Civil Division, this case against me will be dismissed with prejudice.

  4. Every affront to decency and every style adopted by criminals is not per se a constituttional violation. Only fools believe or espouse that.

  5. This was an unnecessary change in law, a needless fiddling with a tax that impacted very very few hoosiers, but one that erodes a tax base benefitting very many hoosiers. Just because some people wanted to chalk up a "tax cut" on their legislative brag-list, and didnt give a fig about replacing the revenue any other way. Really stupid. I am a republican my whole life and this just shames me like hell. I have to use a fake name over this because I know my fellow republicans are all brain washed over tax cutting too.

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