Chesterton Tribune

 

 

Couple who stole $100K from widow want restitution payments lowered

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The Michigan City couple who admitted stealing more than $100,000 from an elderly Chesterton widow--and are now accused of violating their probation by failing to make timely restitution--say they can’t afford to make court-ordered restitution.

And they want a judge to reduce their required monthly payments to the victim to 20 percent of their net pay.

In July 2014, Bary Bostic, 47, and Robbin Bostic, 41, each pleaded guilty to one count of theft, a Class C felony punishable by a term of two to eight years. Under the terms of the plea agreement, the Bostics were sentenced to eight years in the Department of Correction, with the entirety of that term suspended but for the 16 months and 24 days which they spent in the Porter County Jail while awaiting disposition.

Porter Circuit Court Judge Mary Harper ordered Bary Bostic to make restitution of $110,230 in equal monthly payments over the probationary period and Robbin Bostic to make restitution of $52,690 in equal monthly installments.

Only two months later, however, the Bostics’ probation officer, Mitchell Walcynski, petitioned the court to revoke their probation, on the ground that Bary Bostic had paid, to date, less than 1 percent of the restitution which he owed through September: that is, only $150 of the required $18,534.48. Robbin Bostic, for her part, had paid only 1.6 percent of the amount which she owed, Walcynski stated: $150 of the required $9,377.44.

The Bostics both denied the accusation.

Now, though, the Bostics are seeking a modification of the restitution order which would significantly reduce their respective monthly payments.

Both Bostics are claiming that “the highest and best employment” they can obtain--with a high-school education and a felony conviction--severely limits their earnings capability: Bary Bostic to $14 per hour, Robbin Bostic to $8.76 per hour.

Both are also claiming to have “health issues requiring constant medication, the monthly cost of which exceeds one fourth of his gross income and health insurance,”

And both are claiming to have “made a good-faith effort to comply with the current restitution”--in the form of a grand sum of $150, according Walcynski--but have concluded that “the ordered monthly restitution amount greatly exceeds (their) disposable income.”

What the Bostics are “willing” to do, accordingly, is “execute a wage assignment or consent to an income withholding order in the amount of 20 percent of (their) net pay after taxes to apply to restitution.”

According to the probable cause affidavit filed by the Chesterton Police Department, in March 2012 officers responded to a burglary complaint in the 300 block of South 10th Street, the home of an elderly--and blind--widow being cared for by the Bostics. The widow was not currently in residence but was staying instead at a hotel in Michigan City.

A woman watching the house, however, advised police that she found a safe in the living room open. A short time later, one of the widow’s co-guardians arrived at the scene and advised police that the safe in question had contained silver and platinum bars and coins. She also advised that the Bostics had access to the residence.

Further investigation determined that a Michigan City jeweler who, over the course of 30 years, sold multiple gold, silver, and platinum bars to the widow’s husband had recently re-purchased many of those bars and had issued several checks to the Bostics or to their real estate broker on their behalf.

The checks include ones in the amount of $96,695, $56,224.45, $67,080.55, $42,695, $14,755, and $45,000.

 
 
 
 

 

 

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