JEFFERSONVILLE, Ky. — Over the last seven months, New Chapel EMS, New Chapel Fire and the Utica Township Volunteer Firefighters Association have gone from having a monopoly over ambulance service in Clark and Floyd Counties, and two fire contracts, to barely hanging on to their service areas.
The organization has blamed this on a tectonic change in leadership, with the CEO of 20 years Jamey Noel being removed during a vast criminal investigation, and the nationwide paramedic shortage. County officials have also been unpleased with New Chapel's response times and often called the current situation unsafe.
We have heard brief accounts from past employees and friends of Jamey Noel about how he was "secretive" and was never challenged as the head of his organizations. Now, for the first time in an exclusive interview, the new head of New Chapel EMS (and the associated business names) is taking shots at his former friend for "lying" to them and leading the organization onto shaky ground.
"And I didn't realize this until looking back in hindsight, but we were always kept segregated from each other, anybody who was important in a leadership position here, we weren't built up as a team. We were built up to play our functions and be at odds with each other, and that was a constant part of the problem with the culture here," Matt Owen said, who has been CEO of New Chapel EMS since February.
Owen started with the organization in 2011 and became chief of the ambulance division in August 2020. Owen said he became "in the top six" of the department at that time.
Jamey Noel and his family are accused of taking $3.6 million from the organization between 2018 and 2023 and spending it vacations, diamond necklaces, an airplane, paying off timeshares, two of his daughter's college tuitions, home repairs, classic cars and more.
Owen said up until Noel's home was raided by Indiana State Police in August 2023, he never noticed any red flags.
"And you asked about red flags, you know, when I came to know Jamey, Jamey already had cars. Jamey already had money. Jamey has always been this big figure in the community," Owen said.
Owen says another reason why he trusted Noel, and many other local Republicans did too, was because he was so influential in elections. Noel was the chair of the Clark County Republican Party, and the party chair for the Indiana Ninth Congressional District. He helped many people get elected, including Owen.
Owen served eight years on Jeffersonville City Council, from 2015 - 2023. Noel was Owen's campaign treasurer in 2015, and he donated at least $3,152 to Owen over various campaigns. These included both direct and "in-kind" donations. We asked Owen about this after our sit-down interview, and he was unbothered, saying many people received campaign funds from Noel, but that doesn't mean he kept any allegiance to him after the ISP investigation started.
"I think every Republican benefitted under Jamey Noel's chairmanship. But that benefit was based on a fraud," Owen said.
Owen also talked us through what it was like inside New Chapel when the ISP investigation into Noel started. Police raided Noel's Jeffersonville home on Aug. 16, but he wasn't arrested and named as the center of the investigation until November.
"In August of 2023 I don't think there was enough people here who really believed there was something going on. It wasn't until November that I realized something wasn't adding up. And even then, there was nobody to go talk to about it, I had to pull another member of the organization out of the station into my car to have that first conversation of, 'Hey, I think there might be something actually wrong here,'" Owen said.
We asked Owen if he feels he ought to apologize for how the situation got to this point, or not noticing any of Noel's alleged misspending.
"I am sorry, because there should have been something that got this attention well before it devolved into what it is. And I'm somebody who was very close to to Jamey --professionally and personally-- and I didn't see these things, and I don't know how that's possible. I don't know how we got here," he said. "And that's been a lot to deal with, but it's not been something that even personally, I've been able to work through, because we're trying to keep this system together.”
Owen's main objective right now is supporting the roughly 60 employees at New Chapel and trying to fit into whatever niche county officials will give them. On Thursday, the Clark County Commissioners voted to bring in Heartland Ambulance on a three-month trial contract. Heartland will provide four ambulances, and New Chapel will provide two.
New Chapel is not planning to bill Clark County for its full $87,000 monthly contract during this trial period. Clark County Commission President Bryan Glover said Thursday they have enough money to pay for both contracts right now, and if that changes, they will ask the County Council for more.
The Heartland contract is over $100,000 per month and involves Heartland being the primary dispatching agency.
Jamey Noel's attorney Larry Wilder did not respond to a request for comment for this story.