(La Porte County, IN) - A former longtime public official and firefighter from LaPorte County is charged again with going inside the home of a woman and rummaging through her belongings without permission. John Sullivan, 62, of Wanatah was arrested Wednesday.
He was charged Thursday in LaPorte Circuit Court with Level 6 Felony Residential Entry and Class B Misdemeanor Malicious Mischief once Judge Tom Alevizos ruled the evidence was sufficient enough for Sullivan to answer to the allegations.
Sullivan was later released from the La Porte County Jail after posting $755 bond.
According to court documents, officers at about 11:30 a.m. responded to a home in Noble Township after a 38-year-woman reported Sullivan was actively engaged in lewd conduct inside her bedroom. She spotted Sullivan on her cell phone screen after receiving an alert from her home security system. One of her security cameras was in her bedroom, police said.
Upon arrival, police said responding officers spotted a gray Honda Civic operated by Sullivan backing out of the driveway of the residence. He was stopped and taken into custody.
The woman knew Sullivan because he used to be friends with her late father, noting that Sullivan had been coming over to her house recently to check her furnace and do other handyman tasks, but she had not given him permission to go freely inside. She also told investigators the security system was just recently installed because of finding things inside her home out of place and having a feeling she was being watched, court records disclosed.
The video recorded of Sullivan includes the images of underwear and various other garments belonging to the victim.
Sullivan was a former two-term La Porte County Coroner before elected to the La Porte County Council. He resigned from the council during his first term after charged with Level 6 Felony Residential Entry. In that case, police said he went inside the home of a 40-year old woman in May of 2017 and rummaged through some of her belongings. That home was across from the Cass-Clinton Township Fire Department where Sullivan at the time was a volunteer firefighter. At the time, he was also employed full time as a firefighter in LaPorte and drove a school bus for the South Central School Corporation.
In 2018, Sullivan under a guilty plea was sentenced to one-year in the La Porte County Community Corrections GPS monitoring program. He was also ordered to undergo a mental evaluation and pay for any recommended treatment.
The residential entry conviction was later reduced to a misdemeanor after Sullivan completed serving his sentence without violations, court records disclosed.
After his first arrest, Sullivan told police he went inside two other homes when nobody was there without permission over the past 20 years.
