Campaigning while facing criminal charges? Warrick incumbents are trying.

NEWBURGH, Ind. — Criminal charges be damned, Dan Saylor and Bob Johnson are running for re-election in Warrick County.

In the resulting political theater, most of Saylor and Johnson's challengers in the May 7 Republican primary election say they are surprised the two incumbent county commissioners are even trying to get re-elected. Saylor and Johnson are defiant, insisting they've done nothing wrong and touting all the good they say they've done for Warrick County.

What doesn't get talked about much on the campaign trail — because Saylor and Johnson say their lawyers won't let them — are their explanations to GOP voters about the specific charges they face.

More: The Warrick County Commissioners have been arrested. What happens now?

All three commissioners — Terry Phillippe isn't on this year's ballot — face charges of felony charges of obstruction of justice and official misconduct and a misdemeanor charge of false informing after they became ensnared in an Indiana State Police investigation into Warrick County Animal Control. Phillippe faces an additional charge of perjury.

Johnson said it's "terrible" not being able to refute the charges against him in his interactions with voters. He is, after all, asking them to vote for him.

"There’s so many things I want to say when I get approached on social media or sometimes very little in public," he said. "But with the media, especially the TV media, you could have a 15-minute interview and they take little snippets here and there and they can make you look any way they want."

Saylor said he'll talk plenty after he is exonerated in the end. At a recent Warrick County GOP candidate event in Newburgh, he declared himself, "100% confident" that will happen.

"Oh, absolutely. Absolutely," Saylor said when asked if he will break his silence when the cases are resolved. "I just hope it’s reported when the case is over as much as it’s reported when our mugshots appear."

And that, says Coroner Sarah Millis-Seaton, one of Saylor's challengers, is part of what makes this campaign so confounding. When an elected officeholder has to talk about his mugshot and charges against him, Millis-Seaton said, it's not a good look.

Millis-Seaton, whose final term as coroner is expiring, had planned to run for a seat on the Warrick County Council. But when the county commissioners were charged with crimes, she decided the Republican Party had to offer someone other than Saylor.

"(Residents and voters) deserve to know what’s going on," she said.

Saylor's other GOP primary challenger, Richard Reid, campaigns on "restoring integrity and trust to Warrick County."

Voters do want explanations from Saylor and Johnson, Reid said.

"Most of them are pretty upset about it," said Reid, a member of the County Council and a former commissioner himself. "(The commissioners are) hoping that they’re going to get off, and I doubt they will. We’ll see."

'I don’t know what I’ve done'

While Saylor insisted he doesn't lie, cheat or steal, he also didn't answer when asked why authorities would bring criminal charges against him and the other commissioners. Reporters should ask those questions, he said.

"I would love for a reporter to ask those questions," he said.

Johnson said he is bewildered by the criminal charges against him.

"I just learned the details (Thursday)," he said. "We got our discovery this week. I’m still trying to understand, and I’ll have to meet with my attorney, but I’m trying to understand exactly what I did.

"I don’t know what I’ve done. I know what I’m charged with, but I don’t know how they came to that conclusion. That’s all I want to say.”

They did so after an extensive investigation.

Through the charges, outlined in many thousands of words in seven sworn affidavits, state police painted a portrait of a Warrick County Commission intent on seizing control of embattled county departments by any means necessary — up to and including an alleged retaliatory firing of a whistleblower and the issuance of orders discouraging county personnel from cooperating with investigators.

State troopers arrested Saylor, Johnson and Phillippe in February. The investigation had already netted the arrests of former Warrick County Animal Control Director Danielle Barnes and two others accused of mishandling public funds and orchestrating an unlawful pet adoption scheme.

Among the barrage of allegations against Phillippe, Saylor and Johnson are accusations that all three lied to the state police.

ISP had tasked Master Trooper Patrick S. Stinson with conducting a "special investigation" into alleged crimes committed by Barnes and others while Barnes headed up Warrick County Animal Control, according to Stinson's written statement in a sworn affidavit.

As of early December, Stinson said he had little reason to suspect the three commissioners of any wrongdoing. That would soon change.

On Dec. 12, the Warrick County Commissioners' attorney, Todd Glass, informed county employees about a new ordinance placing authority to oversee animal control squarely in the commissioners' hands, according to ISP.

Glass' email to county personnel, which is cited in public court records, concluded with a direct and specific order: Recipients should promptly forward him information regarding any county employee or officials' communications with investigatory agencies ‒ including the Indiana State Police.

On Dec. 14, Stinson and ISP Detective Sgt. Brock Werne went to the Warrick County Courthouse to meet Phillippe, Saylor and Johnson. Their discussion initially focused on Barnes and her nonprofit, commonly referred to as WAG.

"After introductions, the first question that I asked the commissioners was if they knew that Danielle Barnes was running WAG from animal control," Werne later wrote in a sworn affidavit. "Dan Saylor said no. Bob Johnson said no. Terry Phillippe said no."

When asked if the commissioners had any documentation regarding Barnes and her nonprofit, the commissioners again stated they did not, according to Werne, who said he "took them at their word."

Witness testimoney and a review of records would later show, the ISP alleged, that the commissioners knew about WAG's role at animal control and concerns about Barnes months before the state opened its investigation.

In March 2023, Saylor and Phillippe reportedly visited Warrick County Animal Control facilities and listened as Barnes explained which items had been donated by WAG: "They saw all of the donations that had come in for WAG fundraisers," the witness wrote in a statement listed in public court records. "Ms. Barnes gave them an update as to how WAG was contributing to the county..."

During a Jan. 9, 2023, commission meeting, Phillippe, Saylor and Johnson voted to pass a consent agenda including an item titled, "The acceptance of the Warrick Animal Guardians donation of building at Animal Control location."

ISP says the vote and the reported meeting with Barnes are evidence the commissioners lied to detectives when they denied knowing Barnes had operated her private nonprofit from Warrick County Animal Control.

One day before Barnes' arrest in December, the situation came to a head when the commissioners fired the health department's administrator, Aaron Franz. The firing is now the subject of an ongoing lawsuit.

State police alleged in stark terms that Phillippe, Saylor and Johnson sought to fire Franz in retaliation after the public health official refused to carry out what he described as "unethical" and "illegal orders."

The three commissioners have publicly stated they fired Franz due to poor job performance.

Stinson wrote in Phillippe's arrest affidavit that health department employees took Franz's firing as a warning to "not cooperate with our investigation." But the unnamed health department staffers and officials continued to cooperate.

On Feb. 1, Phillippe, Saylor and Johnson staged a news conference at which printed "timelines" were offered.

The one-page document spelled out from the commissioners' point of view what had happened between Barnes, Warrick County Animal Control, the health department and the commission. According to court records, the state police now consider that timeline to be evidence of a crime — confirmation that the commissioners "lied and withheld documents in our investigation," an ISP detective later wrote.

That's because the timeline claims the commissioners received only "limited documentation" about Barnes' alleged crimes from the health department between Dec. 1 and Dec. 4.

But Stinson wrote in a sworn affidavit that on Dec. 1, Franz's attorney sent a three-page letter to the commissioners and Warrick County Human Relations with details about Barnes' alleged crimes and WAG.The detective went on to write: “The commissioners had this information when we met with them on December 14, 2023. They stated they had no knowledge or documents about Danielle Barnes or WAG. The commissioners clearly lied to Sgt. Werne and I and withheld this evidence.”

'You do not get arrested for no reason'

Stacey Franz, Aaron Franz's wife, is one of two Republicans challenging Johnson for the GOP's nomination to his seat. She doesn't buy Johnson's profession that he is baffled by the charges against him.

"You do not get arrested for no reason," Franz said. "And that’s what they keep telling the public, is 'Oh, there was no conviction, there was nothing that was really brought out' — but the Indiana State Police has investigated them, found cause for them to be arrested.

"They’re not currently in jail because they bonded out. But that doesn’t mean that they’re innocent. Their day in court is coming."

Franz knows some people think she's challenging Johnson because the commissioners fired her husband. But there's a bigger picture, she said.

"I feel like, if those men can fire somebody that’s worked there for 29 years — like, Terry Phillippe’s only been elected for four (actually, six) — I wonder what else they plan on doing," Franz said.

Steve Spinks, Johnson's other challenger, said the arrests are not an issue in his campaign. Voters don't talk to him about it, Spinks said.

Looking ahead

Few in Warrick County Republican circles think the campaign for Saylor and Johnson's seats will suddenly pivot from the elephant in the room — the arrests — to parks and economic development.

But in a primary election expected to attract about 6,000 voters with no requirement that the winner receive a majority of votes and two challengers in each race potentially splitting any anti-incumbent vote, no one is discounting the possibility that Saylor and Johnson could win.

Against the backdrop of a primary election, the ongoing dispute between the commissioners and the health department has tentacles.

A judge this month ruled that Saylor, Johnson and Phillippe acted lawfully when they voted in December to fire former Warrick County Board of Health President Dr. Jeff Mauck and former board members Dr. Ken Parker and Joye Brown. Mauck, Parker and Brown had petitioned the court to reinstate them.

In their remarks to the Courier & Press, Saylor and Johnson portrayed the ruling as a victory for them.

But the court also found that the fired Warrick County Board of Health members and its former president had not, as the county commissioners alleged, failed to perform their statutory duties while in office — an allegation that served as the basis for the officials' firings.

Warrick County Judge Pro Tempore Robert R. Aylsworth found that Indiana law gives the fired board members "neither procedural due process rights nor the right to appeal their removal to a circuit or superior court for review."

Aylsworth concluded he had no choice but to deny the petition and enter a judgment in favor of Saylor, Johnson and Phillippe.

There likely will be more legal action that will extend beyond next month's primary election. A status conference in the criminal cases is set for June 28.

That would be a migraine headache for Republicans if Saylor is their candidate in the November general election, Millis-Seaton argued.

"This would sure give them ammunition for (Democrats) to bring a strong candidate out against him," the challenger said. "I am encouraging Republicans to really strongly consider that."

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Campaigning while facing criminal charges? Warrick incumbents are trying.