Eberhart reports to the federal prison camp

A former state legislator representing part of Bartholomew County has headed to prison after spending just over a year behind bars on corruption charges last month.

Former state Rep. Sean Eberhart (R-Shelbyville) arrived Thursday at the Federal Correctional Institution in Manchester, Kentucky, about 75 miles south of Lexington, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said. A release date was not listed in the bureau's online inmate search as of Friday afternoon.

The facility is described by the Federal Bureau of Prisons as a medium-security federal penitentiary with an adjacent minimum-security satellite camp. The medium-security prison holds 980 inmates and the minimum-security camp holds 87.

Eberhart is currently being held in a minimum-security camp, Federal Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Randilee Giamusso told The Republic on Friday. Inmates at the camp are housed in dormitories divided into two-person cubicles, according to Zoukis Consulting Group, which claims to have profiled every federal prison.

The former Indiana lawmaker is not the first lawmaker to be held at the camp. Former Missouri Senator Jeff Smith served his sentence at the camp after pleading guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice in 2009, ABC News reports.

Smith, who later published a book about his experiences, wrote in an article in Politico that he was assigned to physical labor at the camp. In the article, he states that he and several of his fellow inmates were tasked with unloading trucks at the prison's food warehouse, moving about 35,000 to 40,000 pounds of food in and out of freezers each day.

The medium-security prison has also housed several notable inmates over the years, including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who is currently serving a 22-year sentence at the facility for seditious conspiracy for his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Eberhart, who represented Indiana's 57th district in the House of Representatives from January 2006 to November 2022, was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison in July for supporting a bill that favored a casino in exchange for the promise of lucrative employment.

The charges against Eberhart stemmed from Spectacle Entertainment's efforts to acquire two casinos on Lake Michigan in Gary and their state licenses and move them inland to downtown Gary and Terre Haute, according to federal court documents.

Purchases and relocations of casinos in Indiana must be approved by passage of a bill by both houses of the state legislature and signed by the governor.

In 2019, a bill was introduced in the House Public Policy Committee and later in the House floor that would allow Spectacle to purchase the casinos and relocate them elsewhere.

At the time, Eberhart was a member of the House Public Policy Committee, which was responsible for issues related to casinos and gambling in Indiana.

Around this time, a Spectacle owner identified in court documents as “Person A” offered Eberhart future employment at Spectacle at an annual salary of $350,000 in exchange for his support and vote for passage of the bill on terms favorable to Spectacle.

According to court documents, these conditions included a reduction in the originally proposed $100 million transfer fee that Spectacle had to pay to acquire the licenses for the two casinos, as well as favorable tax incentives. The transfer fee was ultimately reduced to $20 million.

In March 2019, during a House Public Policy Committee hearing, Eberhart argued for removing the $100 million transfer fee from the bill.

According to a March 2019 report in the (Munster) Times, Eberhart “questioned the need to attach a $100 million fee to the relocation of the casinos.”

“That's a hard amount for me to swallow,” Eberhart is quoted as saying. “That's a huge amount. If a private company, whether it's a manufacturer or another private company, came to us and said, 'Hey, we want to invest $300 million in the Borman in Gary and $150 million in Terre Haute,' we as the state of Indiana would pull out our checkbooks. We would write them a check. We would offer them incentives. We would beg them to make that investment.”

In April 2019, Eberhart spoke to an unidentified person about the status of the bill and efforts to “get it right for (Person A).” That same month, Eberhart argued for a 20% tax rate that would save Spectacle tens of millions of dollars.

Court documents include text messages from Eberhart to an unidentified person in which the former congressman writes: “We have work to do and two casinos to open.”

Eberhart is one of three current or former public officials representing parts of Bartholomew County or the surrounding area who have been charged with criminal offenses over the past year.

In June 2023, Republican Rep. Jim Lucas of Seymour received one year of probation and 180 days of suspended sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of driving his vehicle through a freeway guardrail while under the influence of alcohol and then fleeing the scene of the accident. A Jackson County judge later reduced Lucas' probation by six months.

In May, former Jackson County Auditor Staci Eglen was arrested and currently faces nine felonies, including three counts of fraud, theft and abuse of office. The Indiana State Police accused her of creating fake invoices and submitting them to the county treasurer for reimbursement. A court date in Jackson Circuit Court is scheduled for December 3.