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Local officials declined to comment on a lawsuit filed in Marion Circuit Court by Richard and Janet Orban.
City attorney Mike Valentine had no comment today about the pending litigation.
The Orbans are asking for all relief available under the law, including compensatory and punitive damages and all other appropriate relief. They demand a trial by jury.
Criminal charges against the Orbans were dismissed in January by Kosciusko Circuit Court Judge Rex Reed.
Stephen Foster, the current Warsaw police chief, was captain of the Warsaw Police Department at the time of the investigation involving the Orbans.
He said he had not seen the lawsuit and couldn't comment on any of its 113 counts.
When Foster named Paul Schmitt WPD captain in May 2000, Foster commented that he and Schmitt have known each other and worked together for 26 years.
Schmitt, who is named in the lawsuit as an individual and who is alleged to have conducted the investigation of the Orbans, worked with the Kosciusko County Prosecutor's Office for about a year after Chuck Waggoner took office as prosecutor, Foster said. It was while Schmitt was assigned to the prosecutor's office, according to Foster, that the Orban investigation took place.
Waggoner said there was no specific reason why Schmitt was assigned to the investigation of the Orbans' business, Carpet Express, which was outside Warsaw city limits, instead of a Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department detective. He also said that, in Indiana, any law enforcement officer has jurisdiction anywhere in the state.
He said Schmitt was a police investigator for the Warsaw Police Department at the time of the Orban investigation.
County administrator Ron Robinson said Schmitt was never on the county payroll.
Craig Allebach, now Winona Lake town coordinator, was chief of police at the time of the investigation. He retired from the police department May 27, 2000, after 20 years of service.
Allebach said Schmitt worked as the prosecutor's investigator for about a year after Waggoner took office and continued as a Warsaw Police Department detective.
As far as the allegations in the lawsuit that Schmitt destroyed evidence, Allebach said, "Schmitt had been to some computer forensics classes. They teach how to seize equipment without destroying any data."
