Indiana AG faces hearing amid groping allegations

INDIANAPOLIS — The professional future of Indiana’s attorney general is at stake with a disciplinary hearing that threatens his law license after allegations that he drunkenly groped four women at a bar last year.

A former state Supreme Court justice will open a perhaps weeklong hearing on the professional misconduct complaint against Republican Curtis Hill on Monday. Hill disputes the claims from a state lawmaker and three legislative staffers that he inappropriately touched their backs or buttocks during a party at an Indianapolis bar celebrating the end of the 2018 legislative session.

Hill has rebuffed calls from Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb and other state leaders to resign. The Indiana Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether to impose any sanctions on Hill’s law license, which he needs to serve as the state’s top lawyer.

The allegations were made by Munster Democratic Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon and one Republican and two Democratic legislative staffers.

Reardon alleges Hill slid his hand down her back, underneath her dress and grabbed her buttocks. One staffer says Hill used his hand to rub up and down her back. Another says he grabbed her wrist and moved both of their hands over her buttocks. The third staffer says Hill put his arm around her waist and pulled her close.

A special prosecutor declined to file charges against Hill and a state inspector general’s report determined he didn’t break any ethics rules, although it cited eyewitnesses who called Hill’s behavior inappropriate and “creepy.”

The disciplinary commission alleges Hill committed professional misconduct by carrying out misdemeanor battery against all four women and felony sexual battery against the woman whose wrist he grabbed.

Curtis Hill