Indiana
Reporter
Arrested
after
Exposing
Drug
Task
Force
Corruption
5/10/98
Daniel J. Yovich, a reporter for The Times of Northwest Indiana, was arrested last week (4/24) on a pair of four year-old misdemeanor bench warrants by two officers from Sheriff John Buncich's internal affairs office. For the past several months, Yovich has been investigating and reporting on allegations of corruption and mismanagement at Buncich's federally funded Lake County Drug Task Force. After the arrest, Sheriff Buncich released a statement through his office which read, in part, "I have been advised that congressional funding may not be renewed because of negative reporting by The Times. I, as your sheriff, along with other police chiefs throughout Lake County, will not permit this to happen." It was Yovich's investigative reporting that brought to light $11,000 in missing funds which were signed out by an officer who had been arrested weeks later by the FBI for attempting to extort $25,000 from a drug dealer. The eleven thousand was federal money, received by the Task Force as part of the region's designation as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). According to Yovich's subsequent reporting on the issue, Sheriff Buncich's office didn't tell federal officials that the money was unaccounted for until after Yovich's article was published, more than two weeks after the officer's arrest. Ongoing investigation and reporting by Yovich and The Times has led to a widening federal investigation of mismanagement and the misappropriation of resources at the Sheriff's task force, as well as to questions of conflicts of interest in the state investigation of the matter. Two months ago, Yovich was searched for a wire by Sheriff's officers, who indicated that they believed that he was providing information to federal investigators. Yovich indicated that he has been asked by his employer not to comment on the issue, but he did refer us to Times Executive Editor William Nangle, who told The Week Online, "There is no doubt in our minds that this is an effort by the Sheriff's office to intimidate both the reporter and the publication." Yovich, 36, previously worked as a foreign correspondent for UPI in Bosnia from January, 1994 - June 1996, and then for the Daily Southtown in Chicago. He began working for The Times in August, 1997.
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