Jamey Noel case | Why a former Indiana sheriff and his family face numerous felonies

Thanks for joining us with this special report on the state investigation into former Clark County Sheriff, Jamie Noll facing 25 felonies right now, I'm Brooke Cash, joined by focus investigative reporter Travis Bree, who's been covering the story very closely for months now, who is this guy? So Jamie Noll was the Clark County Indiana sheriff from 2015 until the end of 2022. And at that same time, ended looking all the way back to roughly 1993. He was also in charge of or in a leadership position at 2 to 3 fire or EMS response agencies. Uh, that is Utica Township Volunteer Firefighters Association, as well as New Chapel Ems and New Chapel Fire. And the state investigation into him has been looking into misuse of funds as sheriff and also as, um, the head of those Ems agencies. He is no longer the head of those agencies. He was placed on administrative leave in November and then he was permanently removed in January and he's in, he's behind bars right now. We'll get to that. He is behind bars at the moment. Yes. As of very recently, 51 search warrants at this point, something, you know, when you talk about a case and, and what police and attorneys may give us. This is crazy to think that over the last few months we've gotten so much detail into these investigations with him. It is, um, it's crazy that we have gotten so much information on a, a trial that hasn't started yet. Um, there has been 51 search warrants, a lot of them have been, it's probably been about 5050 in terms of electronic search warrants, like for bank records or American Express purchases and physical searches of, you know, properties, his home, uh, the sheriff's office, inventory places where he was storing, uh, allegedly storing, um, county vehicles and things like that. So, yeah, it's been about half physical searches and, and then electronic searches of records and we talk about these agencies. He's over a lot of the nonprofits. It showed just the span a huge reach that he had the leverage had in the Southern Indiana communities. Yes, I have spoken to some of the agencies that approved the contracts for these agencies and they've all told me prior to his home being searched in August of 2023. He had a very pristine reputation in the community. He was a well trusted sheriff. He had been a firefighter for 20 years. He and his agencies were providing adequate service to the community. And so people were thinking, I'm getting the fire service I'm paying for. So people weren't asking a ton of questions until, you know, the first tip was left and, and the investigation started. Ok. So let's take a look at the nuts and bolts again when we talk about who Jamie Noel is again, former clerk, county sheriff from 2015, just to 2022. Right. That's correct. And, uh, he was replaced by, um, Scotty Maples who was his chief deputy at the time. And when we've been looking into these search warrants, um, we've seen some former employees say Sheriff Noel would ask me to put something in a, in a certain room. He would ask me to put something over here and, and it raised a question for me. Um, but it doesn't seem like anyone left the initial first tip with state police, um, until he had officially left office. Ok. And so a lot of information has been going on and this is a family affair at this point. This is not just our former sheriff, this is his wife and now his daughter facing allegations as well. Yes, that's correct. Um, his wife is a co defendant with him on 10 charges and his daughter is, uh, facing nine charges. Their charges are not related to anything that he did as sheriff. They're related to the spending of the credit cards with the fire department. Uh, but I believe we want to, uh, take a look at the, the timeline of how this investigation started and how, um, Sheriff Scotty Maples left the first tip with state police in the summer of 2023 Jamie Knowles two terms as sheriff ended January 1st 2023. Scotty Maples, his chief deputy was elected to replace him. Indiana State police say Maples made the first tip about Noel on June 13th. He alleged several instances of official misconduct during Noel's term. ISP starts the investigation and the media becomes aware on August 16th the day. The first search warrant is served. Multiple departments search a home on Old Tay Bridge in Jeffersonville that belongs to Noel. Firefighters use buzz saws to break through walls. ISP won't confirm. Noel is under investigation but Maples confirms he made a tip and believes some criminal activity occurred. State police refuse to say anything until Noel is arrested on November 8th. He has his first court appearance the next day, Noel is read his charges and his bond is set at $75,000 cash. He also has to turn over his passport and all guns except for one shotgun noel posts bond on the ninth and the entire case file is unsealed and made public. All right. So now let's get to exactly what Jamie Noll is facing 25 felonies right now for sealing county funds among other things. So the 1st 15 felonies were the ones that he was arrested on in November and those are and those are kind of the the buzzwords we've been using to talk about his investigation. You've probably heard us say things like ghost employment, corrupt business influence, um, and making or, uh, you know, telling county employees to do personal errands for him while they were on county time. Some of it was also on weekends or when their shift was over allegedly, but it seems like he had some pull with them to be like, you know, I really would appreciate if you could do this for me. Um, and some of the allegations that have come out have even been county employees working on his personal properties, unclogging pipes, leveling floors in his basement. Those were probably jail employees that he had a good relationship with and, and thought that he could ask them to do some extra work for him. So the 1st 15 felonies are related to, um, taking sheriff's office inventory and moving it to a separate pot for himself for personal gain. Yes. Um, and so the 1st 15 are all about the sheriff's office and then the next 10, when he moved from 15 to then 25 felonies, then those are all related to Utica Township Volunteer Firefighters Association slash New Chapel ems slash New Chapel fire. And those are the ones that we've mostly been talking about. Oh, you know, February March, April because that's kind of where the investigation has turned to is because according to state police, they have found a very wide breadth of credit card charges and a lot of the audience has found that very interesting. And then as we talked about being tied up with the entire family, let's go into Misty and what she's accused of. Yes. Um, all the family members have pleaded not guilty to all of their charges. We don't know if they're gonna say anything to the effect of. We didn't know, you know, uh Jamie handed us a credit card. We didn't know if it was the family's credit card or we didn't know that it was a fire department credit card. We don't know if they're gonna say anything like that. Um, but Misty Knowles 10 charges are primarily because she filed joint taxes with her husband and the kind of the nexus of what state police is saying about why the credit card charges are illegal is because they used it for personal income and they didn't declare it as personal income on their taxes and they've been sure to spell that out multiple times in the search warrants saying and, and the search warrants are all dated the day that they filed their tax returns. And so that is what state police have been able to use as their kind of through arrow about the illegal activity allegedly is taking the fire department funds for personal purchases without declaring it as personal income. And the same can be said for Casey Knoll. Um, his daughter, his daughter and her charges are the lowest of the three, I believe, Jamie by far the most amount of alleged charges then Misty and then Casey. Um and I also wanna say that a lot of people have asked me, you know, out in the city, how much time could he be facing? And his, him and his family are all facing level five and level six felonies, which are the lowest and second lowest levels of felonies in Indiana, they carry a recommended sentence of three and one years. So it's hard to guess if special judge Medlock could make them run uh, concurrently or consecutively. Um, we, we're not even close to making that decision yet, but he's not facing a ton of time at the moment. There is a, there are a lot of dates and a lot of things that we have learned and we have another timeline for you at this point. Yes. Um, we wanted to say that in all three of these cases, they've needed a special judge in all of them because Jamie was so ingrained with the Clark County court system as sheriff for eight years. So they've needed a special judge to be appointed through the Indiana Supreme Court for all three of the cases. Um, and they've also needed a special state prosecutor, um, because the, the prosecutor in Clark County is a Republican and he removed himself as well. So now we're going to show you guys, uh, the timeline of what has been a very active, uh, January February and March on January 22nd. Police said they were investigating $4.8 million worth of questionable activity on Utica Township Volunteer Firefighters Association credit cards. They did not believe Noel had ever reimbursed the department. Misty Noel was charged on January 31st and special Judge Medlock signed her arrest warrant on February 1st. Misty was already at the courthouse waiting to turn herself in in her arresting documents. Police release a month by month spending breakdown for $3.5 million worth of charges including pool renovations at a home in Florida, tanning beds and purchases at Victoria's secret. Jamie was accused of making $2.8 million in purchases and Misty 660,000 between 2018 in 2023 on the ninth, Casey Knoll, one of Jamie and Misty's daughters is mentioned in court documents as a user of the fire department credit cards on February 16th, the Indiana State Board of Accounts finished its audits of the Clark County Sheriff's office and requested no repay $900,000. He allegedly stole from the jail commissary fund. Much of that was to a friend for vague consulting work. Casey Knoll is arrested on nine felonies on March 8th, all related to using Utica Township credit cards and not declaring it as income. On that same day, the heirs of William Leon Noel file a petition saying Jamie Noll profited from his brother's estate after he died. The petition is to reopen the estates and see where the money went. New Chapel Ems held a press conference on March 13th to say it had no knowledge what Jamie Noll was doing and was working to get back the public's trust. Five days later, the organization files a lawsuit against Jamie Noll saying he is still using the credit cards while no longer being an employee and is refusing to give them up again. So many players in these investigations, and we spoke about this at the very top and how unusual this case is because of all the information we as the public have been able to receive through the release of these search warrants again. Now, in the fifties at this point, what have we found so far? I know we have a lengthy list of the items. One thing that people were very interested to learn about at the start was the vehicle inventory of the Utica Township Volunteer Firefighters Association. Um And what we have up on our screen here now is related to his crimes. Um, that police say he did as sheriff. So one pot of money that search warrants have said that Noel used heavily was the jail commissary fund. And the jail commissary fund is meant for inmates to buy gifts or snacks while they're in jail. It's meant for general jail improvements and technology improvements. And the current leadership um at the Sheriff's Department has said to me that that is a fund that did not have a ton of oversight. Um And as you saw in the timeline, the State Board of Accounts asked Jamie Noll to repay $900,000 that he allegedly took from the jail commissary fund. They don't have the power to, to, they don't have a court order to require him to repay that money at the moment. So we're still waiting to see where that will go. I'll get back to the vehicle inventory. Now, what's come out in the search warrants? Police are saying that Noel would swap the vehicles back and forth between the sheriff's office and his nonprofit ems entities. He would send someone to a government auction or something like that and he would say, go pick this up for the sheriff's department and then in the search warrants, it said a few times the employee would then drop it off at Utica Township Volunteer Firefighters Association. There was also some examples of when Noel would, um, he would, he would take a, a sheriff's office vehicle or he would take a fire department vehicle and he would use it as a trade in for himself for a personal vehicle. And in the search warrants, it said many times that he would never reimburse the department. Some of the other eye popping kind of flashy charges that we've seen is related to travel. Um, state police are alleging that he, um, Miss spent $3.5 million worth of charges over five years. And we have down on there, um, $327,000 for airfare, Ubers, hotels and time shares. A search warrant came out recently that he was paying off a time share using Utica Township volunteer firefighters, credit cards, alcohol and tobacco. $77,000 according to search warrants, apartment rentals, $22,000 beauty products, 100 $65,000 and some fine clothing. So it state police have spared no detail in their search warrants. Um, there's a Cessna plane in there somewhere, right? The Cessna plane is, um, under sheriff's office charges. I think it said that he created a Clark County Sheriff's office, Aviation Department and he purchased two planes. One that the informant in the search warrant said was for the sheriff's office and one that the informant said I was under the impression it was a personal purchase for Mr Noel. And that was, I believe a $25,000 airplane with, um, $16,000 worth of repairs. And that was, um, yeah, that was another, another one that caught people's eye for sure. This is definitely shined a light on such a broken system. How did this go unnoticed by so many people for so long? I asked the Utica Township Volunteer Firefighters Association, current Chief Matt Owen Ha, did Jamie know have to turn in receipts to you guys? And he said, I think that will come out in the investigation. I asked him is New Chapel Ems in credit card debt and he said there is a balance. Uh He wouldn't extrapolate on what the balance is, but a good amount of it probably comes from him being in charge of the nonprofit entities and him not having to turn in a ton of receipts. What you're seeing here now is uh one of his government contracts with the New Albany Township Fire Protection District. And that contract is a 10 year contract that was signed in 2016 and it's paid out over $7 million. And if you've never heard of a fire protection district, you're probably in the majority. Um, a fire protection district is what's used in Indiana to provide fire service in unincorporated parts of the county. And the fire district is overseen by the fire board of trustees. The fire board of trustees is appointed by the county commissioners and then the county commissioners go pretty hands off. At that point. I've pressed both both Clark and Floyd County. What was your guys' role in these contracts? And they've said we didn't really have a role, it was up to the fire boards. And if you look at these contracts, some of the contracts required specific oversight that was not being done. The New Albany Township Fire Protection District contract required that the fire board of trustees would receive yearly financial statements from New Chapel Fire they weren't getting those, it required that they would approve new Chapel fire's budget. They weren't doing that. I do wanna thank Darryl Mills and Eric furnish with the new Albany Township Fire Protection District for giving me an interview and for helping me find this because he also had a contract with the Utica Township Fire Protection District. I haven't been able to reach any of those people. It's a significantly lower dollar amount, but without speaking with Darryl Mills and Eric furnish, we wouldn't have been able to uncover this. And they are still part of that organization and they, they're having meetings, they're, they're doing their own internal investigation and they want to be part of writing the ship going forward. You need people like that. And so Jamie, of course, Jimmie Noll was the Clark County sheriff. What else was he to the local Republican parties? A lot of the time he was the GOP chair for Clark County. He was also the GOP chair for the ninth congressional district. That is the district that congresswoman Aaron Hon is uh represents. And so he was the party representative for the ninth district which includes uh multiple counties. He stepped down from both of those roles over the last few months after the leadership in those counties sent him a letter asking him to step down. He also was on Governor Eric Holcomb's transition team after he was elected in 2016. Uh And we also know that. Uh, Jamie Noel has some pictures on his Facebook with Mike Pence. So he has some deep connections to the Republican party in Indiana for sure. And we know, you know, in talking about all the, all the names out there, other sheriffs in multiple communities. I know Scott County, one of them. That, that's been a name that's been brought up. Yes, that's right. Um, Kenneth Hughbanks has not been charged with anything at the moment. Kenneth Hugh Banks was appointed to fill a vacancy as Scott County Sheriff, I believe in 2018 and a lot of the jail commissary fund, uh, alleged Miss spending is to Hugh Banks enterprises. It's also come out in search warrants that Kenneth Hug Banks owns E and H Insurance, I believe is the name of it. And that's the agency that provides the, the liability coverage for his nonprofit entities, uh, for his fire departments. And so Hugh Banks is not charged with anything at the moment. I wanna emphasize that. Um, but yes, there, there has been a connection to him and he served as Scott County sheriff for only eight months to serve as an appointment and he did not run for re election. So the biggest thing that's happened recently, of course was the, uh, Jimmy Noll Contempt of court hearing that happened back on April 9th and we heard from the judge who didn't hold back. Yeah. So let's just paint the picture a little bit about what the contempt of court hearing was about. So when Jamie was arrested on November 9th, he, his bond conditions were to turn over all of his weapons except for one shotgun for home defense. And he, he couldn't be released from custody until that had been done. So he had to call two people and say, will you please go through my house and pick up all my guns and turn them into state police. The two people he chose to do that were Bradley Kramer, who's his brother in law and Charlie Moon, who is a Floyd County resident who previously uh unsuccessfully ran for Floyd County Council and they found 82 guns when they went through Noel's home on uh old Tay Bridge, possibly one other property. And they did not find two semiautomatic pistols that were in the basement. And so the contempt of court hearing, Jamie's side argued, it was an honest mistake. We did our best. We asked two people to go through the house. We were speaking with them on the phone saying there's guns here, there's guns there and it was an honest mistake on our part. Special judge Larry Medlock was not having it and he ordered no in contempt of court. I told Mr Noel don't do anything stupid. Do not try to deceive me, defy me. You will not, not like the consequences. Today is that day you are not the law. You don't interpret the law. You don't enforce the law. You're not above the law. I find that you have that you are in contempt of this court, take him into custody. So that was the moment, uh, it was a long proceeding. It was, uh, about three hours court proceedings and we didn't know if there was gonna be anything really reportable or, or super newsworthy about that day. And then Judge Medlock, uh, was saving some fireworks for the end there. So, uh Jamie Noll will be in jail for 60 days, assuming there's no appeal or there's no attempt to change that and his trial will be more than 60 days away. So they'll have plenty of time to meet and prepare for the case and he is still the only one of the three currently in jail at this point. Yes, Misty and Casey both spent a weekend in jail. They were arrested near the end of the week and they spent a weekend in the Scott County jail and then they were released. So Jamie is the only one awaiting trial in custody at the moment. What is next in this case? So we mentioned it in the timeline, the heirs of Leon Noel lawsuit. Um That case is looking to reopen Jamie's late brother's estate because there was a search warrant that came out that said that he was made the controller of his brother's estate and that he illegally profited from it. So Leon Knowles's Children have uh it's not a lawsuit. I need to be clear about that. It's a petition to reopen the estate and that is going forward. The last I talked to the attorney representing the kids, an attorney has not come forward yet to represent Jamie. No, in that case, which is understandable, they have a lot of other things going on. But when an attorney is appointed in that case, which is a civil case, it's not a criminal case, then we'll be able to see how that petition plays out. Um, I'm trying to speak to a former employee of New Chapel Ems about what it was like to work for Jamie Noll. Some of the things that they've told me over the phone is that there was a lot of blurred lines about who was a firefighter and who would drive an ambulance and Matt Owen with New Chapel Ems. He told me that we've acknowledged that that did happen in the past and we're trying to get rid of it. And then as far as court dates, they, uh there's a pretrial court date on May 6th. That was supposed to be the start of the actual trial, but it got pushed back to November. So things have slowed down. We were, there was a week where we got search warrants, four or five search warrants in a week. It has slowed down. Uh, but there could be some additional defendants and we don't know if we don't know what else the state police are looking into at the moment? Right. It's at the hands of the police obviously. And of course, we will keep you uh in light of what we find out Travis. We know you've been keeping an eye a very close watch over this case. Thank you so much for all of your insight and thank you all for watching the special presentation. We'll see you next time.