GOP Indiana attorney general won't be charged in alleged groping
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill (R) will not be criminally charged in the alleged drunken groping of a state lawmaker and three legislative staffers at a party this year because it would be too difficult to prove a case against him, a special prosecutor said Tuesday.
In his report on the investigation released Tuesday, Special prosecutor Daniel Sigler said there was not sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt "that Hill's intent in the touching was rude, insolent or angry," as required for a battery conviction."The setting of this lent itself to problems prosecuting. It was in a bar. It was in the early morning hours. Free alcohol was being served and flowing."
A confidential legislative memo leaked to the media revealed the four women's allegations against Hill. Three of the women soon went public , including Democratic Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon, who described Hill's behavior as "deviant" when she encountered him in the early morning hours.
She said Hill leaned toward her, put his hand on her back, slid it down and grabbed her buttocks. The Munster lawmaker says she told Hill to "back off," but he approached again later in the night, put his hand on her back and said: "That skin. That back."
Sigler noted that Hill didn't deny the touching occurred, but that he justified it as "incidental ... in the crowded bar" and "not intended to be disrespectful, sexual in nature or rude." Special prosecutor Sigler also said he didn't see any benefit to a potentially lengthy and expensive prosecution. "This would be a drawn out, complicated — legally and factually — case that would last a long, long time," he said.
https://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/Prosecutor-plans-announcement-on-investigation-of-13328386.php
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