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\nA former Bullitt County official, who for years has been accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the beneficiaries of estates he was managing, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Louisville on charges of committing wire and bank fraud.<\/p>\n
John Schmidt, a former Bullitt County master commissioner and county public administrator, devised a scheme to defraud and obtain money from two separate trusts between September 2014 and January 2019 to use for his own personal expenditures, according to the indictment.<\/p>\n
A master commissioner assists circuit courts, in part, by conducting sales of foreclosed property to satisfy liens, mortgages or claims of ownership.<\/p>\n
The grand jury indicted him May 2 on one count of wire fraud and two counts of bank fraud, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office. He faces up to 80 years in prison.<\/p>\n
He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Wednesday.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Schmidt was arrested by Hillview police on state charges of abuse of public trust and theft.<\/p>\n
A court hearing is scheduled for June. <\/p>\n
Schmidt was appointed as the Bullitt County master commissioner in 1992.<\/p>\n
Numerous state audits documented missing money, $67,000 in 2005, for example, while a 2011 audit included an agreement that Schmidt would reimburse $52,000 to the master commissioner account.<\/p>\n
Schmidt was quietly removed from his court-appointed position in 2019. Since then, two lawsuits filed in Bullitt Circuit Court claim he stole more than $400,000 from estates he was managing. One of those cases settled, but the details are not public. <\/p>\n
In 2021, a state commission that oversees court conduct found that Schmidt was guilty of misconduct and had misappropriated $81,000 in proceeds from a foreclosed property.<\/p>\n
The litany of audits and other findings raised questions about why Schmidt hadn\u2019t faced criminal charges or how he kept a job controlling state funds for decades.<\/p>\n
The FBI is continuing to investigate.
\nSource: WDRB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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