Lake Superior Court Judge Diane Kavadias Schneider will temporarily step down from her seat on the bench after informing the court she would be unable to perform the duties of her office. Serving in her place as judge pro tempore will be attorney Stephen A. Tyler.
A Lake Station man convicted of killing his girlfriend has been sentenced to 70 years in prison. Jovanni Torres, 32, was sentenced Friday to 60 years for murder and 10 years for using a firearm in the crime.
A Crown Point couple has been charged with neglect after a young boy they were babysitting found a gun in a bedroom and fatally shot himself. Rachel Lynn Griffin, 24, and Brett A. Beatty, 29, were charged Tuesday in Lake Superior Court with neglect of a dependent resulting in death and neglect of a dependent related to the death of 4-year-old Eric Cole.
A Gary man sentenced to death for killing his wife and two teenage stepchildren has lost his latest attempt to overturn his conviction – a post-conviction relief petition. Lake Superior Judge Samuel Cappas and Magistrate Judge Natalie Bokota determined in a ruling issued Friday that Kevin Isom of Gary failed to establish he had ineffective counsel at his murder trial or during the appeals process.
An accomplice in the 2015 kidnapping and slayings of two teenage brothers in Gary has been sentenced to 12 years in prison. Kiontay Cason, 24, apologized in court for his role in the murders of 18-year-old Arreon Lackey and 16-year-old Antonio Lackey.
A Lake County man who is not licensed to practice law in Indiana but who performed legal work for a friend in a family law matter has been permanently enjoined from continuing his unauthorized legal work.
A Chicago man faces murder and other charges in connection with an April 14 fire in Hammond that killed a woman and injured two others. Court records show 42-year-old Ronald Alan Gee also faces attempted murder and arson charges connected to the fire that killed 62-year-old Brenda Poole.
An in-court battle over yet another Indiana abortion law will take place Friday when the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana will urge a district court judge to enter an injunction against portions of a law set to take effect in less than a month.
A former Merrillville town councilman was sentenced to 15 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge, with the court acknowledging he had already forfeited $7,500 to the United States.
Charges were dropped against a former East Chicago junior high school teacher accused of sexual misconduct with two students. The teacher was charged in October 2016 with felony child molesting and sexual misconduct.
A Gary man who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for fatally shooting a Gary police officer is asking a court to review his conviction. Twenty-nine-year-old Carl Le’Ellis Blount has filed a post-conviction relief petition alleging Lake County prosecutors threatened him to get him to plead guilty to murder in the 2014 shooting death of Gary Patrolman Jeffrey Westerfield.
The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s adjudication of children in need of services, finding the mother’s struggle for stable housing and her positive drug tests did not meet the Indiana Supreme Court’s standard that the children were seriously endangered. The mother told case workers she was an attorney.
A Griffith woman has been charged after police say she accidentally shot her 5-year-old daughter during a party at a suburban Chicago home.
A former Marine who admitted to killing seven women in a plea deal with Indiana prosecutors has been sentenced to seven life sentences.
Residents of two northwestern Indiana cities are getting an update on efforts to clean up heavy metals near a former industrial smelter.
A former Lake County Sheriff’s Department official has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during a public corruption investigation that led to the conviction of former Sheriff John Buncich.
A federal judge has set a June hearing in Evansville on Planned Parenthood’s bid to block a new Indiana law that requires medical providers who treat women for complications arising from abortions to report detailed patient information to the state.
A county in northwestern Indiana has ratified a jail contract that increases jailers’ pay in an effort to curb turnover and overtime among corrections officers.
A former Lake County sheriff’s officer who authorities say struck and killed a man with his squad car while intoxicated at the 2016 Gary Air Show has pleaded guilty but mentally ill.
The Environmental Protection Agency has discovered more lead contamination in northwestern Indiana. Soil samples collected since October have revealed more than two dozen contaminated yards in Hammond and Whiting, the Chicago Tribune reported.