The Chesterton man
accused of perpetrating a hostage hoax at Valparaiso University a year
ago--in an incident which prompted a massive law-enforcement response--has
been exonerated.
Both charges filed
against Michael Clemens, 21--intimidation and false informing--have been
dismissed by the Porter County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, and he has
returned to class at VU, his attorney, Gary Germann, told the Chesterton
Tribune today.
Clemens was taken
into custody several hours after a call was made at 7:04 p.m. April 21,
2015, to the Valparaiso Police station by a man saying that he’d taken
hostages in VU’s Christopher Center and had access to an explosive. By 10
p.m. the Porter County Sheriff’s Police SWAT Team had cleared the
Christopher Center and determined the call to be a hoax.
Meanwhile, a Porter
Police officer on duty at the time--and a cousin of Clemens--overhearing
scanner traffic, made note of the fact that the caller had apparently
identified himself as a “Michael Commons,” close enough to his own cousin’s
name to give him pause. That officer asked to listen to a tape of the call
and then expressed his confidence that the caller and his cousin were the
same person.
Clemens was
subsequently located on campus, interviewed, and charged.
Three days after
the incident, however, on April 24, Clemens was at home in Chesterton
playing Scrabble in his basement with friends when Chesterton Police
officers responded to his residence, after a 911 call was made by a man
identifying himself as Michael and saying that “he was feeling suicidal and
wanted to hurt his mom and dad.” The address the caller gave was Clemens’
own.
The purportedly
suicidal caller was still on the line with the dispatcher, however, as CPD
officers made physical contact with Clemens, who was not on the phone or
anywhere near one at the time.
That second
call--in which the supposed hoaxer was himself hoaxed--was key to
exonerating Clemens, Germann told the Tribune. “It was one of the
most telling things in this case,” he said, and not simply because
Clemens--standing there as he was, talking to police officers, while the
hoaxer was still talking to the dispatcher--couldn’t have made it.
It was most
telling, Germann said, because a voice recognition specialist has confirmed
that the person who made that second hoax call to Clemens’ home was the same
person who made the first hoax call to the VPD station.
Of the Porter
Police officer’s identification of his cousin as the caller, Germann said
this: “Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Ear-witness is even
more so.”
Germann noted,
though, that had the hoaxer given some other name on the evening of April
21--any other name at all, not sounding like Michael Clemens’--investigators
would have had no reason at all to suspect his client of involvement in the
hoax.
The source of those
two calls remains under investigation, Germann said.
Prosecuting
Attorney Brian Gensel, for his part, released the following statement to the
Tribune this morning: “The Porter County Prosecutor’s Office
dismissed the pending charges against Michael Clemens in connection with the
April 2015 emergency call alleged to have been made from Valparaiso
University. While information initially obtained during the investigation
pointed to Michael Clemens’ involvement, subsequent investigation has led to
the determination that Clemens should not face intimidation charges at this
time. Because the matter is still being actively investigated, no further
information can be provided.”
“Sometimes it takes
a little while for things like this to work their way through the system,
for prosecutors to accept they’ve mistakenly charged someone who is
innocent,” Germann said. “Give the prosecutor credit for taking a good look
at it and making the decision they did. Michael’s family is thrilled.”
“Valparaiso
University has been very gracious,” Germann added. “They’ve lifted Michael’s
suspension so he could come back right away to finish the classes he started
in the spring last year.”
Clemens, studying
electrical engineering, plans to take summer courses as well, to get back on
track. “Michael’s just a great kid,” Germann said. “He loves school and for
him to return to school is a great victory.”