DEKALB COUNTY, Ind. (WANE) — A former chief deputy prosecutor serving in northeast Indiana was suspended Tuesday by an Indiana Supreme Court commission after they proved he violated multiple rules.
According to case files obtained by the Indiana Supreme Court, Robert James Hardy Jr. repeatedly made unfounded accusations that a judge and a fellow attorney were having a sexual relationship, claimed that the judge favored the attorney in court, and made derogatory remarks about various groups of people while serving as DeKalb County’s chief deputy prosecutor during 2023.
In a prior hearing, the hearing officer found Hardy violated two professional conduct rules and recommended a suspension of at least thirty days with automatic reinstatement: Rule 4.4(a), which prohibits a lawyer, in representing a client, from using “means that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass, delay, or burden a third person” and Rule 8.2(a), which prohibits a lawyer from making “a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge”…