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A state appellate court has shut down Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s investigative demands to the Haitian Center of Evansville for alleged labor trafficking, writing in a Monday opinion that the state’s top lawyer was instead “searching for something to investigate.”
In a unanimous three-judge panel decision, the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the Vanderburgh Superior Court’s decision last fall that Rokita had no authority to issue civil investigative demands — basically civil subpoenas — to the Haitian Center because he failed to show reasonable cause that the refugee organization had relevant information about labor trafficking.
But the court noted a more fundamental problem: Rokita failed to show that he was even conducting an investigation — indicating that he was rather attempting to “reverse-engineer suspicion to fit a predetermined target.”
“The record makes clear that the Attorney General is at most trawling for evidence of wrongdoing — looking for information that might eventually trigger an investigation, based on his alleged concern that someone, somewhere might be involved in labor trafficking,” wrote Judge Nancy Vaidik for the panel on Monday.
An office spokesperson for Rokita told The Indiana Lawyer the Attorney General’s Office is evaluating the court’s decision and is considering “what next steps in these investigations may be appropriate.”
In November 2024, Rokita issued a CID to Amcor, an Evansville manufacturing company formerly known as Berry Global, in which he said his office had reasonable cause to believe the company had material related to a human trafficking investigation. The CID said nothing about the nature or origin of the purported investigation, according to court documents; however, it directed Berry Global to respond to dozens of interrogatories on the company’s hiring and employment of migrant workers.
Three weeks later, Rokita issued a “substantially similar” CID to the Haitian Center, which is a nonprofit refugee assistance program based in Evansville.
Because they believed the CID was improper, the Haitian Center and Amcor declined to respond.
Rokita then petitioned to enforce the demands, writing that the arrival of migrants into Indiana and Evansville had “increased substantially” in recent years, that refugees and migrants are among the populations most vulnerable to human and labor trafficking, and that Rokita was committed to fighting trafficking of migrants in the state.
But like the initial CIDs, the petitions also did not identify any specific information related to alleged labor trafficking, such as a reported incident, a victim or a perpetrator, according to court documents.
Rokita maintained he had reasonable cause because Amcor is “a large, sophisticated employer that actively recruits refugees and migrants and works with various migrant resettlement nonprofits to do so” and the Haitian Center is an organization “that aids Haitian immigrants and refugees and collaborates with various migrant resettlement nonprofits.”
During oral arguments before the Vanderburgh trial court, lawyers for the Attorney General’s Office said the office’s investigation of labor trafficking in Evansville stemmed from a “dramatic increase” in the arrival of migrants in the Evansville area over the last several years.
The court asked whether there was a specific allegation or criminal event the Attorney General’s Office was concerned with. Counsel for the Attorney General’s Office said, “We have not identified, and we’re not prepared to identify, a specific suspect who’s engaged in a specific act of human trafficking,” according to court documents.
The trial court later denied Rokita’s petitions for a lack of reasonable cause against Amcor and the Haitian Center.
Rokita appealed, but was met with similar resistance from the court.
“For an investigation to exist, there must be a factual predicate — an articulable reason to suspect that particular wrongdoing may be afoot,” Judge Vaidik wrote. “A mere hunch will not suffice.”
An official with the Haitian Center did not immediately wish to comment, telling The Indiana Lawyer that the center had recently learned about the decision and needed time to process it.
Appellate Judges Robert Altice and Peter Foley concurred with the opinion.
The case is Todd Rokita, Indiana Attorney General, v. Berry Global Group, Inc. and Haitian Center of Evansville, 25A-MI-2817.
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