The Michigan City
couple who pleaded guilty to stealing more than $100,000 from an elderly
Chesterton woman but--under a plea deal with the Porter County Prosecuting
Attorney’s Office--received no jail time beyond that already served are now
being accused of violating their probation by failing to make restitution to
the victim.
Bary Bostic, 47,
and Robbin Bostic, 41, with a listed address of 808 Manhattan St., were
sentenced in July 2013 to eight years in the Indiana Department of
Correction, with all but 16 months and 24 days suspended, the time they
spent in the Porter County Jail while waiting disposition of their case.
Per the plea
agreement, Porter Circuit Court Judge Mary Harper ordered the Bostics to
serve the balance of their sentence on formal probation, with Bary Bostic
required to make restitution of $110,230 in equal monthly payments over the
probationary period and Robbin Bostic to make restitution of $52,690 in
equal monthly installments.
According to
Probation Officer Mitchell Walczynski, however, Bary Bostic should have paid
$19,534.48 through September 2014 but has paid only $150; and Robbin Bostic
should have paid $9,337.44 but has paid only $150.
The Bostics have
both denied Walczynski’s allegation. Harper has scheduled a hearing on the
matter for Nov. 26 and an evidentiary hearing for Dec. 23.
According to the
probable cause affidavit filed by the Chesterton Police Department, in March
2012 officers responded to a burglary complaint in the 300 block of South
10th St., the home of an elderly--and blind--widow being cared for by the
Bostics. The widow was not currently in residence but was staying instead at
a hotel in Michigan City. A woman watching the house, though, advised police
that she found a safe in the living room open. A short time later, one of
the widow’s co-guardians arrived at the scene and advised police that the
safe in question had contained silver and platinum bars and coins. She also
advised that the Bostics had access to the residence.
Further
investigation determined that a Michigan City jeweler who had, over the
course of 30 years, sold multiple gold, silver, and platinum bars to the
widow’s husband had recently re-purchased many of those bars and had issued
several checks to the Bostics or to their real estate broker on their
behalf.
Those checks
include ones in the amount of $96,695, $56,224.45, $67,080.55, $42695,
$14,755, and $45,000.