Former Indiana police officer who abused teenager threatens to revoke postal service license after investigation

The state law enforcement training board, which can act independently after cases like Barber’s become known, voted to revoke his license on Monday, less than a week after the Post’s investigation was published. The Indiana Law Enforcement Academy will now notify Barber by letter that he has a right to a hearing or can voluntarily surrender his license.

When asked why the police had not requested Barber’s revocation, Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski replied in an email: “Revocation is a state law.” He declined to answer further questions about the case because legal proceedings are pending.

South Bend officers did not fire Barber, despite saying they would when announcing his arrest on Facebook, when he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a high school student in his patrol car.

Instead, Barber said in a telephone interview with The Washington Post in April, he received a call from the city asking him to resign or face an internal investigation.

Barber submitted his letter of resignation in September 2022, days after a South Bend judge sentenced him to probation instead of prison, saying, “I’ll give you a chance.”

Barber’s victim, identified by the Post by her middle name Anne, said she was once again disappointed with South Bend officials after learning they never requested Barber’s disbarment.

“I honestly feel like the city of South Bend doesn’t care about victims of assault and just wants to cover it up,” Anne said. “It makes me angry and makes me feel like the justice system has failed me once again.”

Barber could not be reached for comment on the declassification effort. Raquel Ramirez, an attorney for the state agency, said the declassification process could take several months. There are no provisions in the law that penalize police departments like South Bend for failing to inform the state of Barber’s felony convictions.

Law enforcement agencies are required to notify the state when officers leave an agency and provide an explanation for their departure. South Bend officials noted in their filings that Barber resigned after being charged and convicted of a crime in Indiana, but did not provide details or report that he was facing disbarment.

Some states, including Indiana, publish the names of decertified officers to prevent them from being hired by other agencies. Brian Grisham, deputy director of the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training, said the success of decertification systems depends largely on self-reporting by law enforcement agencies.

“This is an area that could be strengthened uniformly, namely by having consequences for not being completely transparent or honest about the reasons for the separation,” Grisham said.

The Post’s investigation, titled “Abused by the Badge,” revealed that hundreds of police officers in the United States have sexually abused children over the past two decades, with officers at all levels of the justice system failing to protect the children, punish the perpetrators and prevent further crimes.

Reporters identified at least 1,200 officers convicted of child sexual abuse between 2005 and 2020. Nearly 40 percent of those convicted officers did not receive a prison sentence.

In Indiana, Anne was a 16-year-old high school student when she met Barber at her first job at Chick-fil-A in the summer of 2021. The 36-year-old officer knew Anne wanted to be a police officer and offered to give her a ride home in his patrol car. There, he sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions and later admitted to sending her more than 1,300 messages from his work laptop in less than three months.

Barber faced up to 18.5 years in prison. Prosecutors offered Barber a deal that limited his sentence to four years and allowed him not to discuss how and where the officer would serve his sentence. Barber’s own attorney had recommended house arrest as a condition of probation, but Judge Jeffrey Sanford opted for probation only after raising concerns about the officer’s safety behind bars.

“You would be in danger the entire time you were there,” Sanford said. “You might not even get out of prison.”

Sanford, who previously represented the city of South Bend as an assistant district attorney and defended police officers accused of misconduct, refused to release an audio recording of the sentencing and did not respond to questions about his handling of the case. In a written transcript obtained by The Post, Sanford compared Barber’s crimes to “picking on a 16-year-old.”

Without the revocation of his police license, Barber could have been hired by another police department. The Post’s investigation identified officers across the country who were charged – or sometimes convicted – of child abuse, domestic violence and other serious crimes but were hired by police departments anyway. They were then accused of further crimes against children.

In an interview with The Washington Post in April, Barber, who currently works in construction, admitted to committing a crime and said he understood that some people, including the victim, believed he should have received a harsher sentence.

“It could have been worse. I could have gone to jail and ended up on the streets, never getting a job again,” Barber said.

He said he now spends most of his free time at church or at home, raising chickens and honey bees with his family.

“It’s been good for me. I know people don’t want to hear that. They probably want to know that I’m experiencing pain or torture,” Barber said. “But I’m very happy and very lucky.”

Anne, meanwhile, said she continues to fight for accountability. She filed a lawsuit against Barber and the city of South Bend, demanding that they be held liable for what happened to her in Barber’s patrol car.

In court documents, the city denied that it “failed to investigate, take disciplinary action, or otherwise hold its police officers, whether on or off duty, accountable.” South Bend also claimed it was not directly responsible for the harm Barber caused Anne.

The teenager is also calling for a federal criminal investigation into Barber’s conduct, according to a letter her attorney sent to the Justice Department in March. If the agency agrees, Barber could be indicted on federal charges and face prison time again.

Citing department policy, Clifford Johnson, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana, declined to comment on whether the Justice Department would launch an investigation.