Developments to watch this year in Johnson County dailyjournal.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailyjournal.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
May 25, 2021 / 06:27 PM EST
INDIAANAPOLIS (WISH) Former Muncie Mayor Dennis Tyler on Tuesday agreed to a plea deal to be found guilty of theft of government funds.
The maximum penalty facing the former Democrat mayor is 10 years in prison followed by 10 years supervised release, plus a $250,000 fine. However, prosecutors have recommended Tyler receive a sentence on the “low end” of prison time and a fine. A judge will determine the sentence, although no court date has been set for that hearing.
Tyler was arrested in November 2019, just months before he completed eight years in office on Jan. 1. An FBI investigation of Tyler had begun in 2016.
INDIANAPOLIS Nearly three years after he was indicted by a U.S. District Court grand jury investigating local government corruption, ex-Muncie Sanitary District official Tracy Barton has agreed to enter a guilty plea.
A 29-page plea agreement signed last week by Barton, a 51-year-old Delaware County resident, details among other things his alleged delivery of a $5,000 bribe from a contractor to then-Muncie Mayor Dennis Tyler in December 2015.
The deal calls for Barton who was the sanitary district’s superintendent of sewer maintenance and engineering for five years before his September 2018 indictment to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.