Vanderburgh County prosecutor candidates are now fighting over an overheard conversation

EVANSVILLE — In an increasingly rancorous race that has seen candidates for Vanderburgh County prosecutor accuse each other of puffing up their own credentials, Republican Diana Moers and Democrat Jon Schaefer are now clashing over an overheard conversation.

Relying on something she says she heard Schaefer say to other attorneys, the 40-year-old Moers accuses Schaefer, 44, of trying to use the prosecutor job as a stepping stone to other things.

She vows to serve "for many (four-year) terms" if she wins the Nov. 8 election to choose a successor to Nick Hermann because, she says, that's how effective change happens.

Schaefer says she is "seriously misrepresenting" a vow he made to do what's necessary no matter the political cost.

Vanderburgh County's next prosecutor will be only the third person to hold the job in the previous 32 years. With no terms limits to constrain them, recent elected prosecutors have made longevity in office a hallmark of their tenures.

Democrat Stan Levco was prosecutor from 1991 until 2011, and Levco gave way to Republican Hermann. Neither man wanted to leave: Levco was defeated by Hermann in the 2010 election. Hermann, in turn, was defeated by Moers in a May 3 GOP primary election.

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Moers says she heard Schaefer say explicitly to other attorneys after a recent Evansville Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers forum that he would serve just one term if elected. She was standing a few feet away and wasn't eavesdropping, she said.

"That’s really concerning to me, and I think that people should be concerned about that," she said. "There’s no way that you can make an effective change in four years, and to suggest that you just want to do this for one term means that you’re using it as a stepping stone to do something else."

Moers said being prosecutor is "a calling to me — one I have carefully crafted my experiences to be ready for."

Moers is Evansville-based chief of the government litigation section in the Indiana Attorney General's Office, where she defends state agencies and officials in civil rights cases. She has worked as an assistant public defender in Ann Arbor, Michigan; an attorney in a Wheeling, Illinois, law firm; and as an assistant prosecutor in Joliet, Illinois. She has served in Indiana state government since 2010, prosecuting violations of the Indiana Securities and Loan Broker Acts and working as executive director of the Indiana Board for Depositories.

Schaefer, chief counsel for the Vanderburgh County Public Defender's Agency and an attorney there for nearly 13 years, paused for several seconds when told what Moers said she heard him say after the defense lawyers forum.

"I didn't say that," he finally said. "I don't want to call her a liar, but she's seriously misrepresenting what I said."

The defense lawyers group said it didn't record the campaign forum at which Moers and Schaefer appeared, but conversations between attendees after such events typically are not recorded anyway.

'What I said was ...'

Schaefer said he has no political aspirations beyond being the elected prosecutor and hasn't much liked what he has seen of politics in his first run for elected office.

"What I said was, I’m going to implement my changes for four years, and if the public’s dissatisfied, they can vote me out," he said. "I’m not coming in and just being Nick Hermann 2.0. I’m going to make real changes, and that’s going to ruffle some feathers."

Schaefer cited the prosecutor's office's contract with local law firm Kahn, Dees, Donovan & Kahn (KDDK) to collect forfeiture money from the seizure of cash, cars and other property during arrests or searches by law enforcement. KDDK gets 25% of the money it collects, plus reimbursement for expenses.

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The Courier & Press reported in August that the law firm has been paid almost $453,000 since 2013, according to county auditor records. The rest of forfeiture collections are distributed to the prosecutor's office and law enforcement agencies in the Evansville-Vanderburgh County Drug Task Force.

Schaefer said the contract with KDDK is too much to give to private lawyers for too little actual work. That money should go to law enforcement and the prosecutor's office budgets, he said.

"I’m going to get rid of (the contract with KDDK), and that’s going to upset some people," he said. "How does that affect me (in a re-election campaign) in four years? I don’t know."

But Moers also portrays herself as a fighter willing to take on established interests. Schaefer regularly tweaks her for having no experience in Vanderburgh County's criminal justice system, given that she has practiced law in state government and in other states.

During an Evansville Vicinity NAACP Branch campaign forum Thursday night, Moers countered by casting herself as a plucky outsider who has demonstrated during a 15-year legal career that she has the skills to plunge right into Vanderburgh County's courts system and succeed.

She noted that she has traveled to all the state's 92 counties and worked in state and federal courts in her work with the Attorney General's Office. Indiana Rules of Evidence are the same in all 92 counties, she said.

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"What does it take to do a trial?" Moers said. "Public speaking, getting things into evidence, presenting your case — and lucky for me, even though I'm not a member of a good ol' boys club, I can still prosecute cases effectively in any courtroom, and I've proven that on the state and the federal level."

Moers also has the endorsement of the local Fraternal Order of Police lodge's political action committee.

Hermann's name won't be on the prosecutor's line of the Nov. 8 general election ballot — the first time that's happened in 20 years. He was the GOP's nominee in the 2006 election but didn't win that year.

Moers has said she would be Vanderburgh County's first female chief prosecutor, an assertion supported by local historians. Meanwhile, a victory for Schaefer would return the prosecutor's office to Democrats for the first time since Hermann ousted Levco in 2010.

Early voting in Vanderburgh County begins on Wednesday at Old National Events Plaza. Tuesday is the final day to register to vote in time to participate in the Nov. 8 election.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Overheard conversation sparks jabs in Vanderburgh prosecutor race