Charges against Whiting mayor feel like gut punch
Disappointment. No other word best describes how tens of thousands of Region residents likely felt when they heard news that Whiting Mayor Joseph Stahura was charged with wire fraud and filing a false income tax return, according to federal prosecutors.
Say it ain’t so, “Mayor Joe.”
This was Stahura’s affectionate nickname by Whiting citizens and Northwest Indiana residents who respected and appreciated him. I was one of those admirers.
I’ve interacted with Stahura multiple times since he became Whiting’s mayor in 2004. Each time, he was courteous, professional, personable and genuinely friendly. He was a stand-up guy who exemplified the best of Lake County politics amid a cesspool of dirty politicians, chronic public corruption and continual indictments.
I considered Stahura, 64, one of the good guys in Lake County politics, once joking that he should be labeled the poster-child of clean politics in my 2017 book “Crooked Politics in Northwest Indiana.” He laughed it off. During that phone chat, I wouldn’t have believed he was capable of repeatedly withdrawing money from his campaign account to gamble away at casinos and other personal expenditures.
Stahura entered into a plea agreement indicating his intent to plead guilty to the charges against him. Page eight of his 12-page plea agreement sums up his crimes: “Between approximately February 2014 through 2019, both my wife and I used approximately $255,000 of Campaign Account funds for personal purposes. To cover up our theft of these campaign funds, for several years I filed campaign reports with false and misleading information and omitted material information from these reports.”
One quarter of a million dollars pilfered. A premeditated cover-up. So disappointing.
I didn’t feel this way with other public officeholders who’ve been indicted for public corruption crimes. Stahura was above such public deceit for personal gain, I wrongly presumed. I was duped. We were duped.
“All I can say at this time is that I used some funds from my campaign account for personal use,” Stahura said in a statement. “I routinely paid it back, (but) the circumstances have resulted in wire fraud and income tax violations.”
He apologized, assuring citizens that “no city money was ever touched.”
I never gave a dime to any of Stahura’s mayoral campaigns or fundraising events. For those major donors and mom-and-pop contributors who trusted him with their money for his campaigns, outrage may be the correct word to describe their reaction. For me, the only thing lost is my respect and admiration.
“Another black eye for Northwest Indiana,” United States Attorney Thomas L. Kirsch II said in the media release.
This black eye feels like a sucker punch.
Last year, for a story I wrote on Whiting’s impressive downtown and lakefront improvements to attract residents and tourists, Stahura told me, “People aren’t blind.”
Yet how many of us were blind to his crimes these past five years? I’m as guilty as anyone for not being at all suspicious of good ol’ Mayor Joe, the Whiting native who embodied all that was good about his charming little city and its unique amenities — the lakefront WhoaZone, the Mascot Hall of Fame, downtown revitalization, and of course the annual Pierogi Festival. Each summer, Stahura beamed with pride at his city’s nationally-known event and its wacky parade, nurturing a sense of inclusion for all visitors.
“Public corruption erodes the trust constituents put in their elected officials and undermines the integrity of government,” FBI special agent Paul Keenan said in a statement.
His comment amplifies the broader aspect of this latest indictment. Trust has long been eroded with Northwest Indiana residents, especially in Lake County.
“For tens of thousands of region residents who’ve lived through too many political scandals to count, it’s not if, but when the next one will be unearthed by federal authorities. It’s not a matter of who, but who else this time. Whispered rumors are always swirling, and possible indictments are always looming in regard to current elected officials who may soon be added to that list of shame.”
I wrote that previous paragraph in 2016. Unfortunately, nothing has changed four years later, this time thanks to Stahura, who now joins that infamous list of shame.
You’d think our elected officials wouldn’t be so brazen, considering our region’s reputation, right? Or the fact that no-nonsense federal agents are always sniffing around local government offices, looking for something, anything, to mount a case. Wrong, just as I was about Stahura’s character.
On Thursday, I studied the 30page charging documents filed in federal court against Stahura and his wife, Diane. I asked the spokesman for Kirsch’ s office how long the investigation into the couple’s crimes had been underway. The spokesman wasn’t allowed to comment on it, he replied.
I wondered if the investigation was in the works for more than a year, possibly when the Stahuras were still siphoning money from his campaign coffers. And also why Stahura was both treasurer and chairman of his own “Committee to Elect Joe Stahura”? This should be a new red flag for other public officeholders.
The six-page pretrial diversion agreement for Diane Stahura states several conditions she must abide by “in the interest of justice.”
I’m less interested in legal justice and more concerned with public trust regarding her husband’s case. He faces up to 23 years in a correctional facility, according to court documents. Who cares about his sentence beyond his family, friends and political loyalists? How many years will it take to restore a sense of reliance with our elected officials? If we can’t trust someone like Mayor Joe (who will soon be known only as Joe), who can we trust?
As one reader told me Thursday, “Pierogis will never taste quite the same again.”