Two former Porter County deputy prosecutors, Harry Peterson and Andrew Bennett, are vying for the opportunity to run on the Republican ticket in the general election against Democratic incumbent Porter County Prosecutor Gary Germann, who is seeking reelection.
Harry Peterson, the LaPorte County Felony Supervisor Deputy Prosecutor, was a Porter County Deputy Prosecutor from January 2019 to September. Peterson, who also served on the Valparaiso City Council, is concerned with the handling of high-profile cases involving children.
Offenders facing possible sentences of 20 to 60 years in prison, but serving 10 or less trouble him, particularly when other criminals who didn’t harm a child face more severe sentences.
“Sometimes it’s best to avoid having a victim testify, but I feel in the grand scheme of things these are really evil people getting a slap on the wrist,” he said.
Peterson also feels the prosecutor’s office could do a better job communicating with victims. “Maybe it’s easier to send a letter, but it’s nice to be in contact with people on the phone and talk to them in person,” he said.
The timeliness of filing cases bothers him. He said, “Sometimes these are very serious cases,” involving death or child molestation, “where these potentially very violent people are left in the public.”
He’s dealt with several cases where years elapsed between case filing and resolution. He recalled a case filed in June of 2015 for child molestation, a Class A felony, that didn’t go to trial until March 2022, when the defendant was found guilty and sent to prison for over 100 years.
“Generally speaking, it’s only going to benefit the defendant,” for the case to be pushed out that long, he said, since witnesses move, memories fade, and sometimes contact is lost with victims. “If you want to be tough on crime, you need to be willing to take the tough cases to trial,” he said, adding that the defendant often hopes to get a “sweet” plea deal.
“It hurts the process when good cases, or serious violent cases, get that plea deal to 10 years,” Peterson said. “In reality, doing a jury trial is the most difficult job a prosecutor has.” To that end, Peterson said he did twice as many jury trials, over 25, as any of his colleagues when he worked as a deputy prosecutor for Porter County.
“I’ve done as a prosecutor murder, rape, domestic battery, child molestation (trials),” he rattled off. “My opponents, as far as I’m aware, have done maybe one jury trial in maybe the last 10 years.” He said his Republican opponent has “never done a murder, a rape or a child molesting case.”
Regarding the prosecutor’s department working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Peterson said, “I don’t know that that’s something from the prosecutor’s perspective. That’s more the sheriff.”
Peterson said it’s not just his trial experience that makes him well-suited for the job, but the executive experience he’s gained serving the community in a variety of roles. He was vice president of the board of Indiana Dunes Tourism in 2021 and ‘22, president of the Porter County Bar Association in 2023, and currently serves on the Porter County Park Board and Valparaiso Plan Commission. “I believe that gives me a lot of experiences that qualify me in ways outside of just being a lawyer,” he said.
He said the administrative and budgeting experience gives him a unique perspective and skill set “to actually get it done. You oversee all the departments, you interact with all the department heads.”
Bennett has practiced law for 27 years, nearly 14 as a deputy prosecutor in Porter County and two-and-a-half years in Lake County, where he specialized in narcotics cases.
“I’ve always wanted to give back to the office,” he said, explaining he left in 2014 to open his own criminal defense firm due to his wife’s sudden change in employment. With their youngest child a senior at Purdue, he feels he can make that commitment.
Bennett finds his relationship with law enforcement a strong suit. “I’ve always enjoyed working with law enforcement,” he said. “Even though I’ve been gone for 11 ½ years, I have a lot of friends in law enforcement and they’ve often told me of the disconnect with the prosecutor’s office.”
Pushing back on Peterson’s criticism of his narrower trial experience, Bennett said it’s true he’s never done a rape or murder trial, but the Porter County Prosecutor’s Office assigned specialties to various deputy prosecutors during his time there.
“It’s not because I wasn’t capable. That’s how the department was structured,” he said, comparing the division of expertise to specialized police officers.
“I had specialized training in vehicular homicide,” from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Bennett said more murders have been committed in the last seven years than in years past, offering more opportunity for deputies to try such cases.
If elected, he plans to rebuild relationships with law enforcement. In his opinion, and those of some other attorneys he’s talked with, there’s a belief that plea agreements coming from the prosecutor’s office aren’t always being handled appropriately. “From talking to law enforcement, sometimes they think they’re being undercharged,” he said.
Bennett said some officers believe some of the more serious offenses are being pled out to lesser charges. “There’s a lot of police officers that actually follow their cases,” Bennett explained.
He would like to see “much more open dialogue with officers and come at this as strong as possible,” while upholding Constitutional rights. Bennett likes the problem-solving courts such as Drug Court, Veterans’ Court and Mental Health Court, and would like them expanded.
“Gary (Germann) has done a better job than his predecessor on problem-solving courts,” he said.
Regarding his stance on working with ICE, Bennet said, “Will I uphold the law and follow the Constitution? Yes. Just because someone is here illegally does not automatically make them a drain on our society. Are there bureaucratic roadblocks to the immigration process? Yes, but it’s not necessarily the prerogative of the prosecutor’s office.”
Bennett said he has no ambition to be a career politician. “The only two jobs I’ve ever aspired to have been prosecutor and judge.”
He also pointed out there’s more to being a prosecutor than trying cases. He said running his own practice gives him a depth of management experience from HR to payroll to taxes – “all the boring stuff a trial attorney doesn’t want to deal with.”
Bennett said he was contacted by email by someone who wrote they were battered in their home and not getting the contact with the prosecutor’s office they would like. If elected, he intends to survey victim assistance training and protocols, would encourage his staff to develop specialized training in specific subject matter of the law as he has, and make himself available to law enforcement at all hours.
Germann, first elected in 2018, is seeking his third term in office.
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter with the Post-Tribune.
