JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. — During Monday's victim impact statements in the final day of the Jamey Noel case, leadership of the Clark County Sheriff's Office talked about their decision to tip-off Indiana State Police on June 7, 2023.
"No deal was made, no attempt was made to cover up someone else's actions or save the current sheriff. We called because it was the right thing to do," Colonel Mark Grube said at the witness stand on Monday.
Both Grube and now Sheriff Scottie Maples, R-Clark County, were high-ranking officers under Jamey Noel. Maples was Noel's chief deputy from 2020 until the end of 2022.
On the day Noel was arrested in November 2023, Maples said he found a wiretap somewhere in the sheriff's office in June, and that is what led him to start looking into every level of the department. Maples did not take the witness stand Monday, but did submit a written statement.
"More than a year and a half ago, I discovered that Jamey Noel had installed a secret listening device in an office before I became sheriff. After this discovery, I ordered an office–wide review into how the sheriff's office ran and spent money. That review uncovered more disturbing information about Jamey Noel," Maples said in his statement to the public released at 3 p.m. Monday.
Grube revealed more in his statement in court Monday, including that he began to doubt Noel in April of last year.
“As I told Jamey in our last conversation in April 2023, I had placed him on a pedestal he did not deserve," Grube said.
WHAS11 reached out to Grube Tuesday to see what he meant by this. He said around this time (when Noel was out of office) he found documents that showed Noel had kept his friend Kenny Hughbanks on the books as a sheriff's office employee until 2022. Noel had previously told Grube that stopped in 2020.
Grube said Noel admitted that Hughbanks had a sheriff's office vehicle and was being paid for contract work out of the jail commissary into 2022. Hughbanks' name first came up in court documents in February 2024, alleging much of the same.
In February, court records indicated this scheme was only illegal because Hughbanks and his business "Hughbanks Enterprises" didn't file a tax return or declare commissary payments as income. Grube echoed this saying, "That's not criminal but being lied to was a problem for me."
Grube says he and Maples began to look into things, and ended up finding the wiretap sometime between late May and early June. He says he called ISP Superintendent Doug Carter the last week of May, but they were not able to meet until June 7.
"Identifying who initiated this investigation should not be difficult; Sheriff Maples and I did," Grube said Monday.
Grube and Maples have also emphasized that 80% of the theft or misspending Jamey was accused of was at New Chapel EMS. A State Board of Accounts audit for the sheriff's office revealed $900,000 in misspending, compared to almost $4 million at New Chapel.
"We will always have to answer the question, 'How didn't you know?' For me, the answer is simple. Jamey told me he owned the for-profit EMS service New Chapel EMS, and that he had nonprofit contracts with Utica and New Albany for fire service. He told me the business was lucrative and I believed him," Grube said.
The Utica Township Volunteer Firefighters Association, the official legal name for New Chapel EMS, is a nonprofit 501(c)4.
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