10-Year Term Reduced To Eight Months

A Warsaw man sentenced to 10 years in prison for dealing cocaine was recently released after serving only eight months, to the surprise of local law enforcement officers.

Charles L. Leiter, 34, of 1616 E. Clark St., was released Monday after a sentence modification hearing in which members of his church and community backed up his cause. Leiter was placed on probation for the remainder of his sentence.

At the sentence modification hearing, the courtroom was filled with parishioners from Leiter's church, said Kosciusko County Prosecutor David Kolbe. Leiter's pastor, the Rev. John Reid, said he didn't wish to comment, saying only that Leiter had a new start on life.

Not present at the hearing were police officials who worked on the case in which Leiter was originally charged with four felony counts.

An undercover officer with the Kosciusko County Special Operations Team said he would have liked to testify at the sentence modification hearing. "I didn't even know he was out on the street until I ran into him in a public place," the officer said.

The officer added that he would at least liked to have known Leiter was out on the street, since Leiter knows he is an undercover agent. The officer said he wasn't expecting to encounter Leiter again for another four years.

In the past, a judge or a prosecutor would call to let someone know that a hearing was going to take place, Kosciusko County Sheriff Al Rovenstine said. Rovenstine said officials have asked officers' opinions in such hearings.

But no formal structure is in place to let officers know that criminals they investigated have filed for sentence modifications, authorities said.

Kolbe said his department generally doesn't let officers know when sentence modification hearings are to be held.

Kolbe said there is no way he can notify officers every time there is a sentence modification based on the number of requests for modification he gets per week.

"My view is that we all have different roles to perform. The judge decides the sentence, we decide on the charges to file and the police investigate the cases and bring us the charges."

But as far as Leiter's release, Kolbe says that was Judge Rex Reed's call. "I don't have the final call on that. I don't have as much power as people think.

"What can I say? Did I object to it in court? No," said Kolbe. "I felt that before Charles Leiter went in he had made significant changes and that he needed to do some time ... But then, if we are really about rehabilitation, we need to look at each case and try and determine if a person has been rehabilitated and I think he had."