INDIANAPOLIS -- The former executive director of the state senate Republican campaign committee pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing thousands of dollars from the group and filing a false campaign finance report.\nUnder the terms of a plea bargain agreement, Bradley Hiller will face up to 18 months in prison and be fined nearly $147,000.\n"This is a case where someone in a position of responsibility siphoned off a considerable amount of money to line his own pockets," Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said in a statement. "He needs to be held accountable."\nA sentencing hearing for the two felony charges is scheduled for Sept. 21.
Army honors Indiana native for battlefield valor
\nWASHINGTON -- An Army colonel was given the second highest award for valor Wednesday for his actions during a furious firefight last year in Iraq when he rallied some Iraqi commandos to defend their position against an insurgent assault.\nCol. James H. Coffman Jr., a native of Lebanon, Ind., who was wounded during the Nov. 14 gun battle at Mosul, received the Distinguished Service Cross in a ceremony in Baghdad.\nLast November insurgents attacked several police stations in Mosul, leading to chaos in parts of the city. According to the military's account of his actions, Coffman was with a group of Iraqi commandos moving to reinforce one police station that was under attack when insurgents ambushed them.\nAll but one of the commando team's officers were killed or seriously wounded early in the fight, leaving Coffman, an adviser to the commandos, and the single Iraqi officer to direct the battle.sh: Parole board votes against clemency for death-row inmate\nsh: Parole board recommends death in Baird case
INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Parole Board voted 3-1 on Wednesday to recommend that a Montgomery County man be executed despite claims he was mentally ill when he killed his pregnant wife and his parents in 1985.\nArthur Baird II is scheduled to die by chemical injection Aug. 31 for killing his parents, Kathryn and Arthur Baird. He also was sentenced to 60 years in prison for killing his pregnant wife, Nadine, the day before his parents' slayings.\nParole Board member Thor Miller said Baird, 59, of Darlington, Ind., had played an elaborate game of deceit in an attempt to avoid execution.\n"This is nothing but a brutally cruel man," Miller said.
