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.