A Chesterton Police
officer was found not guilty on Thursday afternoon of pointing a handgun at
his wife during a domestic dispute in their Chesterton home in September
2015.
A six-person jury
deliberated for about an hour before voting to acquit Cpl. Joe Kantowski.
The charge--a Level
6 felony punishable by a term of six to 30 months--was filed against
Kantowski on Sept. 17, 2015, after his wife, Brandi, told the Porter County
Sheriff’s Police that, in the early morning hours, Kantowski had come home
agitated, retrieved what appeared to be a handgun from his sock drawer, then
gone to the kitchen, where he asked her for her car key. Brandi Kantowksi
later advised the PCSP that, when she told him she didn't know where it was,
Kantowski pointed a handgun at her chest and asked her again where the car
key was.
Kantowski then
followed her into the bedroom, took the key from the night stand, and left
the residence, Brandi Kantowski advised police.
Kantowski
surrendered himself to the CPD later that day and was interviewed by a
deputy with the PCSP, which assumed responsibility for the investigation. In
that interview Kantowksi admitted “doing some stupid things last night” but
was “adamant that he never pointed a gun at his wife as she claims.”
That accusation, on
the contrary, was a part of an elaborate plot on his wife’s part to alienate
Kantowski from her own family and to besmirch his character during
subsequent divorce proceedings, Kantowski’s attorney, Larry Rogers, told the
Chesterton Tribune late Thursday.
“Our position, what
I told the jury, is that Brandi set Joe up, so that when she left him for
another man, he would be the bad guy,” Rogers said. “Joe and Brandi had been
married for 17 years and he was very close to Brandi’s brother and her mom
and dad.”
According to
testimony during the three-day trial, shortly after returning from a family
vacation to Branson, Mo., in August 2015, Brandi Kantowski told her husband
that she “thought she wanted a divorce,” Rogers said. “That came out of the
blue, Joe had no idea, and he asked her what he could do. So they started
seeing a counselor and Brandi told the counselor--she did most of the
talking--that she believes Joe’s bipolar. They put him on medications.”
Then, hours before
the reported incident on Sept. 17, Brandi Kantowski told her husband that
“all this time she's been playing around with an college old boyfriend in
Virginia,” Roger said.”That’s the first he knew there was another guy.” That
news prompted Kantowski to leave their house in the 2400 block of Dakota
Street in Chesterton and have a few drinks with his brother-in-law in Kouts,
but in the early-morning hours he returned home, with the idea of of taking
his wife’s car and driving it to Virginia to confront her lover, Rogers
said. It was at that point that the two argued about the car key in the
kitchen.
“Brandi initially
set Joe up to turn her own family against him by accusing him of mental
illness,” Rogers said. “The thing about him pointing a gun at her, that was
icing. If she made the allegation, it would knock the legs right out of his
having custody of their children after a divorce.”
Rogers added that
the jury heard testimony at the trial that Kantowski shows and has shown no
symptoms of any bipolar disorder.
Kantowski has been
on unpaid administrative leave from the CPD since Sept. 23, 2015.
“It was good day,”
Kantowski told the Tribune after the verdict. “I won’t go into
specifics but I was pleased with the outcome and Larry (Rogers) did a great
job.”
On being placed on
unpaid administrative leave, Kantowski noted, “I went back to the Carpenters
Union because that's what I did before my police career. And I’ll continue
with that for the time being. I’d like to return to the police department.”
Chesterton Police
Chief Dave Cincoski, for his part, said that Kantowski “will remain on
administrative leave without pay until so otherwise determined by the Police
Commission, and that the issue is being consulted with town legal counsel.”