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Curtis Hill - Wikipedia

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curtis Theophilus Hill Jr.^[1] (born February 21, 1961)^[2] is an American prosecutor from the Republican Party who served as the 43rd Attorney General of Indiana from 2017 to 2021.^[3][4] He was the first African American to be elected to a statewide office in Indiana.

A graduate of Indiana University and Indiana University School of Law, Hill was a lawyer in private practice and part-time prosecutor until 2002, when he was elected Elkhart County prosecutor. He was reelected to the post, ultimately serving four terms from 2003 before his election as state attorney general in 2016.^[5] During his tenure, Curtis led with a conservative agenda, opposing marijuana legalization and attempting to stop restrictions from being imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2018, Hill was accused of sexual misconduct by four women, prompting calls for his resignation. Hill has denied the allegations. A subsequent investigation by a special prosecutor found the allegations credible, but also found that there was insufficient evidence to convict Hill of a crime. In 2020, in an attorney disciplinary proceeding, the Indiana Supreme Court found that he committed a misdemeanor battery in violation of rules of professional conduct, and suspended Hill's bar license for 30 days.^[6][7]

In July 2020, he was defeated by Todd Rokita for the Republican nomination of Indiana Attorney General.^[8][9] He ran for Governor of Indiana in 2024, but came in last place in the primary against outgoing U.S. Senator Mike Braun and others.^[10]

Early life and education[edit]

Hill was born and raised in Elkhart, Indiana,^[11] the youngest son of Curtis Hill Sr. (a postal worker and civil rights activist) and Eleanor (a cosmetologist).^[12] Hill studied business at Indiana University^[12] and received his J.D. degree from Indiana University Maurer School of Law.^[11][12]

Legal career[edit]

Hill was a lawyer in private practice and a part-time prosecutor until 2002, when he was elected as county prosecutor for Elkhart County in Northern Indiana.^[13] Hill was re-elected to a further three terms.^[11] Like all Elkhart County prosecutors since 1938, Hill was elected as a Republican.^[5] Hill was recruited by National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Tom Cole to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006, but he declined to run.^[12]

Indiana Attorney General[edit]

Campaign[edit]

In 2016, Hill ran as a Republican for Indiana attorney general, seeking to succeed Greg Zoeller, who did not seek reelection.^[11] Hill ran against former Lake County Circuit Court Judge Lorenzo Arredondo, the Democratic nominee.^[14] Hill significantly outspent Arredondo in the race.^[15]

On November 8, 2016, Hill defeated Arredondo, receiving 1,643,689 votes (61.94%) to Arredondo's 994,085 votes (38.06%).^[16]

Tenure[edit]

Hill is the first African American man to become Indiana Attorney General.^[14]

As attorney general, Hill was viewed as a rising star within the Republican Party.^[17][12] He has frequently tweeted on national issues,^[12] and was speculated as a potential future candidate for U.S. Senate.^[12][18][19] As attorney general, Hill promoted conservative,^[4] and particularly socially conservative, policies. He opposed efforts to downplay opposition to same-sex marriage in the state Republican Party's platform.^[17] Hill also met with President Donald Trump at the White House on at least four occasions to discuss various issues.^[17]

Drug policy[edit]

Hill opposed the legalization of marijuana in Indiana^[18][4] and medical marijuana;^[4] in November 2017, Hill issued an official advisory opinion declaring the use of cannabidiol oil illegal in Indiana.^[20][21] Although a state law passed in April 2018 legalized the possession and use of a particular cannabidiol oil by persons registered with the Indiana Department of Health, Hill determined that the selling or distributing CBD oil was still illegal "under any circumstances, and even individuals entitled to use CBD oil under state law still are prohibited by federal law from doing so."^[22] The following year, the Indiana General Assembly overruled Hill's opinion, passing new legislation reaffirming and expanding CBD's legality in Indiana; the bill was passed 97–0 in the House and 36–11 in the Senate and was signed into law by Governor Eric Holcomb.^[23]

Hill strongly opposed needle exchange programs,^[4][24] and successfully pressured Madison County to halt its program.^[25] He favored harsher penalties for drug offenses, and supported the use of civil forfeiture. In 2017, Hill filed an appeal from a U.S. district court decision holding that Indiana's forfeiture law was a violation of the U.S. Constitution's due process clause.^[4] In 2017, Hill joined with other conservative attorneys general in a filing in the U.S. Supreme Court defending "stop-and-frisk" programs from constitutional challenge.^[4]

Expenditures[edit]

In August 2017, Hill was criticized by some state legislators for spending $279,000 in state funds for renovations to his office at the Indiana State House, and for spending almost $31,000 in state funds for the purchase of a large passenger van to serve as a mobile office. Hill's office defended the expenditures.^[26]

Animal welfare and economic issues[edit]

As attorney general, Hill led a 17-state lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, seeking to strike down a Massachusetts state animal welfare law that would require eggs, pork, and veal sold in Massachusetts "to come from animals raised with room to lie down and turn around without touching an enclosure" beginning in 2022.^[27] Under Hill, Indiana was also one of 13 states that sued California over a law that bars eggs sold in California from coming from battery cage hens.^[27] The U.S. Supreme Court declined to accept original jurisdiction over both suits.^[28][29]

Policing, searches and seizures, and criminal law[edit]

In 2018, Hill filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, seeking to challenge a settlement between the Marion County Sheriff's Office and American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana that stopped the county from detaining people in Indianapolis based only on federal immigration agency requests and without a warrant or probable cause.^[30] Hill asserted that the settlement would endanger public safety.^[30]

Hill opposed the adoption of hate-crime laws (Indiana is one of five U.S. states without such laws).^[12] In 2019, Indiana adopted a bias-motivated crimes law, but the law's failure to list gender identity, gender, or sex as specifically protected classes prompted criticism from anti-hate groups (such as the Anti-Defamation League, which termed the omissions "unacceptable"). Hill defended the new law in an op-ed.^[31]

In 2017, Hill criticized athletes who have protested police violence against black citizens,^[17] writing that the number of instances of police brutality "is but a fraction of the number of black people murdered by black people" and that "(black-on-black violence) deserves the attention of every American."^[32]

Objection to voting rights consent decree[edit]

In 2018, Hill objected to a consent decree to add additional early voting locations in Marion County. The decree, resulting from an agreement between Common Cause Indiana. the Indianapolis NAACP, and the county Election Board, resolved a voting rights lawsuit. The consent decree was approved over Hill's objections by U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker, who wrote: "The state's lawyers may entertain what preferences they will, but violations of federal rights justify the imposition of federal remedies."^[33] Hill was criticized for his intervention in the case by Common Cause, the NAACP, and the Election Board, as well as Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson (a fellow Republican) who said that: "By his reckless action, the Attorney General has disrupted more than 18 months of productive bi-partisan conversations."^[34][35]

COVID-19 pandemic[edit]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Indiana, when local governments imposed restrictions on the size of gatherings to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Hill sent a letter to Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett and Marion County health department head Virginia Caine, asserting that the restrictions, when applied to religious gatherings, were unconstitutional religious discrimination. The local government disagreed with Hill's position.^[36]

Public records violation[edit]

As attorney general, Hill used personal email accounts to conduct public business, a practice that is discouraged by experts in open government and cybersecurity.^[37] In documents produced to the Indianapolis Star following a public-records request made by the newspaper in July 2018, Hill's office redacted personal email addresses.^[37] In March 2019, following a complaint by the Star, Indiana Public Access Counselor Luke H. Britt released an opinion stating that Hill's office violated the Indiana Access to Public Records Act by redacting "private email addresses embedded in otherwise disclosable public records."^[37] Hill's office refused to produce the names of the email addresses even after being notified by the Indiana Public Access Counselor that Hill's office was in violation of the public records laws, citing a different exemption as a reason to withhold the email addresses.^[37] The Indianapolis Star then successfully sued Hill and the AG's office; in 2021, a state judge ruled that Hill broke Indiana public records law and that private emails accounts that were used for public business constituted public records. The court ordered the AG's office to pay the newspaper $49,150 in attorneys' fees and imposed a $100 civil penalty on Hill, possibly the first time that an Indiana public employee was formally sanctioned by a court for failing to comply with public records law.^[38]

Sexual harassment investigations[edit]

Accusations and investigations[edit]

In 2018, multiple women accused Hill of inappropriate sexual behavior.^[39] Four women have accused Hill of groping them during a party at a bar in March 2018, on the last night of the Indiana General Assembly session, prompting an investigation by the Indiana Inspector General.^[40][17] At the request of General Assembly leadership, a law firm prepared a confidential memorandum dated June 2018 that summarized interviews with the woman; the memo was obtained by The Indianapolis Star and made public the following month.^[17] Of the four women, three have publicly come forward—State Representative Mara Candelaria Reardon and two legislative staffers.^[41]

The accusations against Hill prompted calls for his resignation from top elected officials in the state, including fellow Republicans, such as Governor Eric Holcomb, House Speaker Brian Bosma, and Senate leader David C. Long.^[42] Mike Braun, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2018, also called on him to resign.^[43] Hill refused to resign,^[42] and denied allegations of misconduct.^[17] Republican attorney Jim Bopp set up a legal defense fund to cover costs of Hill's defense.^[44]

In July 2018, a Marion Superior Court judge appointed Daniel Sigler to serve as special prosecutor investigating the allegations against Hill.^[44] The Marion County Prosecutor asked the court to make the appointment to avoid a conflict of interest, because Hill, in his capacity as state attorney general, is representing the county prosecutor's office in civil litigation.^[45] Hill unsuccessfully sought to block the appointment of the special prosecutor.^[46] In October 2018, special prosecutor Sigler publicly announced the results of his investigation, concluding that the allegations of the accusers were "credible and true" but that there was not enough evidence to support a conviction for misdemeanor battery given the difficulties of proving Hill's state of mind.^[47] Simultaneously with the release of Sigler's findings, Inspector General Lori Torres released the results of her office's investigation into Hill's conduct the same day; the report was critical of Hill's conduct on the night in question, but determined that Hill did not violate state ethics laws when using state resources to defend himself.^[47] Torres said that "the public and others will judge whether the evidence in this case disqualifies Hill from holding elected office in the future."^[47]

Suspension of law license[edit]

In March 2019, the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission, which oversees the ethical rules governing attorneys in the state, filed a complaint against Hill, alleging that he violated the Indiana Rules of Professional Conduct by engaging in acts of battery or sexual battery against the women.^[48] In a response, Hill said that the Supreme Court should not become involved in allegations against him.^[49] At a four-day hearing in October 2019, the four women who accused Hill of groping them at the March 2018 party testified against Hill; a fifth woman gave evidence that Hill had propositioned her when she worked under him at the prosecutor's office in Elkhart County.^[50] In December 2019, the Disciplinary Commission issued a filing calling Hill's actions "deliberate, loathsome and demeaning" and recommending that Hill's license to practice law be suspended for at least two years.^[50] In February 2020, the hearing officer in the case, former Indiana Supreme Court justice Myra Selby, concluded that Hill had committed battery and had violated the ethical rule requiring attorneys" to behave in a manner that upholds public esteem for the legal system," but found that the evidence was insufficient to prove that Hill had committed sexual battery or violated the ethical rule requiring lawyers to "promise to abstain from offensive personality."^[51] Selby recommended that the state Supreme Court suspend Hill from the practice of law for 60 days, without automatic reinstatement.^[51]

In March 2020, the state House passed (by an 84–9 vote) an amendment filed by Representative Timothy Wesco, Republican of Elkhart, that would provide that "if the individual who holds the office of attorney general is disbarred in Indiana or suspended from the practice of law in Indiana for 30 or more days or at any time during the five years before taking office, the individual forfeits the office and a vacancy in the office exists."^[52] The bill would have had the effect of disqualifying Hill from office if he were suspended from the bar for 30 days or more; Governor Holcomb said he would sign the bill if it reached his desk.^[52] However, the bill died at the end of the legislative session, as the state House and state Senate did not both pass the measure.^[53]

On May 11, 2020, Hill's law license was suspended for 30 days by the Indiana Supreme Court, which unanimously found that Hill had committed a misdemeanor battery in 2018,^[6] and therefore violated the rules of professional conduct for attorneys.^[54] The suspension began May 18, 2020^[55] and ended June 17, 2020.^[56] Hill said, "I accept with humility and respect the Indiana Supreme Court's ruling."^[55] Governor Holcomb filed a motion asking the Indiana Supreme Court whether the suspension of Hill's license to practice law should result in his removal as attorney general; the governor suggested that if Hill were removed, he would be able to appoint a new attorney general. The Supreme Court declined to clarify Hill's status, since Holcomb was not a party to the underlying proceeding.^[57][58] (Indiana law requires that the attorney general be "duly licensed to practice law in Indiana" but does not specify the effect of a suspension of a law license on eligibility.)^[58] Hill designated his chief deputy to supervise the AG's Office during his suspension.^[54] A lawsuit challenging the designation,^[54] and asking for the post of attorney general to be declared vacant during Hill's suspension, was filed by four members of Common Cause Indiana.^[59]

Defeat for renomination[edit]

Despite the allegations against him, Hill continued to seek the Republican re-nomination for attorney general in the 2020 election. He was opposed by three challengers — Decatur County prosecutor Nate Harter, former U.S. Representative Todd Rokita, and Indianapolis attorney John Westercamp — all of whom called into question Hill's fitness for office.^[60] The nominee was selected through a Republican state convention, rather than a primary election.^[60] In mail-in voting at the Republican state convention, Rokita defeated Hill for renomination. Rokita received 52% of the vote on the third round (after Westercamp was eliminated on the first ballot and Harter was eliminated in the second).^[61][62] In the general election, Rokita defeated Democratic nominee Jonathan Weinzapfel, marking the sixth consecutive election in which Republicans retained control of the Indiana AG's office.^[63]

Indiana 2nd congressional district campaign[edit]

After the death of U.S. Representative Jackie Walorski, Hill attempted to replace her on the November 2022 ballot. He was defeated at the Indiana Republican Party's caucus for the nomination by Rudy Yakym.^[64]

Personal life[edit]

Hill is married; he and his wife Teresa have five children.^[12] In his spare time, he moonlights as an Elvis impersonator.^[65][66]

References

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/republican-attorneys-general-go-to-war-for-trump/

For decades, the two partisan political organizations dedicated to electing attorneys general had an agreement not to attack the other side’s incumbent candidate. During President Donald Trump’s time in office, however, theRepublican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) has thrown that accord out the window, lurching further to the right year after year and weaponizing the partisan polarization gumming up the country’s political apparatus.

“Our friends on the other side and particularly donors, much earlier than Democratic donors, started to recognize the power of the office of the attorney general,” Sean Rankin, executive director of the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA), told Salon in 2018, as competition for the once-obscure elected office grew hot across the country.

“They saw this as a real opportunity todevelop the Republican bench, as well as derail those Democrats who had promising careers,” he said.

Spending escalated quickly on the Republican side. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, DAGA’s GOP counterpart, RAGA, raised $16 million in 2014 and nearly $27 million in 2016. In contrast, DAGA raised nearly $9 million in 2014 and nearly $10 million in 2016.

Attorneys general essentially have the final say in prosecutorial discretion, or which cases get taken to court, a fact understood by lobbyists. Industry groups have depended on help from AGs, includingthe National Rifle Association (NRA), which made a $700,000 donation to RAGA four weeks after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.

After that donation, 24 out of 27 Republican AGs wrote Congress asking for a billto make concealed-carry federal law.

Now RAGA has turned its sights to Democrats, launching a new “Lawless Liberals” campaign last month, which parrots Trump’s belligerent race-baiting about the social justice protest movement sweeping the country. The campaign is an unsubtle effort to appeal to a unsubtle president, whose AG endorsements have provided critical support in previous elections.

The group’s most recent ad, however, appears to have nothing to do with attorneys general.

The — “Erasing History” — digitally wipes the faces of all four presidents off of Mount Rushmore one by one, while headlines show people calling for the removal of other monuments featuring their likenesses.

It also apparently has little to do with law enforcement. Of the video, RAGA executive director Adam Piper said: “‘Erasing History’ is a poignant reminder about the dangers of the current ‘cancel culture,’ the threat to our nation and the rule of law posed by anarchists and lawless liberals.”

RAGA bought airtime for the ad in Rapid City, South Dakota, on July 3 and 4, for cable networks MSNBC, CNN and Fox News. This might seem like a strange use of funds, because there is no attorney general election in South Dakota this year. However, Trump will visit the area on those days to celebrate the Fourth of July at Mount Rushmore.

The president’s endorsements have proved critical before, such as with the election of Kentucky’s Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron last year.

Cameron, however, has been taking heat for the handling of the investigation into the shooting death of EMT Breonna Taylor by Louisville police this March, which turned the city into one of the major hotbeds for social justice protests this June.

RAGA’s website exploits that unrest, featuring an animation of a car in flames for the banner imageand threats that Democratic AGs will dissolve police departments and destabilize law and order.

Ironically, Republican attorneys general have recently themselves run afoul of law and order.

In 2015, Texas AG Ken Paxton was indicted on felony securities charges. His trial has been pushed back numerous times since then, but while Paxton waited, RAGA appointed him as its chairman.

“The chief law enforcement officer has a primary responsibility to protect the people. I’m proud to stand with Ken and the rest of my colleagues in working to elect more Republican AGs who will protect our communities and stand for the rule of law,” RAGA vice chairman, Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill, said in the November 2018 announcement.

Hill, however, had been accused of groping four women at a bar nine months earlier, and that summer a bipartisan coalition of Indiana lawmakers called for his resignation.

Hill did not resign, and is in fact seeking re-election in November. His largest first-quarter contribution in 2020 came from the RAGA Action Fund, which donated $25,000 to his 2020 campaign.

In May, the Indiana State Supreme Court suspended Hill’s law license in lieu of the groping allegations. RAGA gave him another $11,000 the next month.

Three days after receiving the contribution, Hill defended himself against the allegations at the Indiana Republican Convention.

“Like President Trump, I have faced accusations and investigations designed to destroy me politically,” he said. “Like President Trump, I’m a threat to Democrats and a radical liberal agenda. Both President Trump and I are wounded, some would say, and yes, we are both warriors with battle scars.”

Though Hill’s comments might come off as a stretch — Trump received a Selective Service deferment during the Vietnam War, exempting him from the draft because of alleged problems with bone spurs in his heels — they exemplify RAGA’s all-in merger with MAGA.

RAGA has inserted itself into the nominally independent judiciary, promoting what it calls its own “judicial farm team.”

It has also sought to restrict vote-by-mail — again citing Paxton — based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.

[twt no lnx]

It has also sought to restrict vote-by-mail — again citing Paxton — based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.

The group has also waded into the fight against the Affordable Care Act, attacking presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden for “politicizing” the coronavirus pandemic. (Biden had written a letter castigating Trump for his “unconscionable” pursuit of a lawsuit “designed to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance” amid a national health emergency.)

“His letter to President Trump on the legal issues surrounding the Affordable Care Act is not only in poor taste but also uninformed. A federal court has already ruled that the ACA is unconstitutional. It is critical the Supreme Court finish its review,” wroteLouisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, RAGA’s chairman.

It was not the only time Landry waded into health care to advance Trump’s interests. In March he secured for his state 400,000 doses of hydroxychloroquine, the now-discredited COVID-19 treatment hawked for months by Trump.

RAGA has spent tens of thousands of dollars on dinners for chief law enforcement officers and their top donors at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. It also filed an unprecedented letter in support of Trump during his impeachment trial in the Senate and called on a Washington, D.C., district court judge to obey the Justice Department’s request and drop all charges against Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser.

“It has become trendy in recent years for courts to weigh in on the wisdom of this administration’s policy decisions. Too often, that commentary comes in grandiose terms more appropriate for an op-ed than a judicial opinion,” the group said, urging the judge to dismiss the case “without irrelevant or personal comment.”

Sean Rankin of DAGA — RAGA’s Democratic counterpart — told Salon in a statement that “RAGA and this group of Republican AGs have quite a strategy: they’re trying to tear away affordable health care from millions of Americans, and they’re against voting by mail – both of these things in a pandemic. They’re against equal rights for women and LGBTQ people, and they don’t believe in science. They stay in lock-step with Trump’s missteps – and then are baffled by the fact that their incumbents are now vulnerable in red states …. I, for one, do not plan on interfering with my opponents while they continue to hurt themselves.”

FEC filings indicate that RAGA, for whatever reason, appears to have iced much of its direct spending in 2020, but it has dropped money into Push Digital, the company that produces the “Lawless Liberal’ videos. To see what kind of production values they’re getting, watch one here:lawless liberals vid

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/a-hyperconservative-state-attorney-general-wants-unprecedented-control-over-local-prosecutions/

no lnx

A hyperconservative state attorney general wants unprecedented control over local prosecutions

Written by Filter January 31, 2020

by Rory Fleming

One might think Indiana has better things to do than police marijuana. According to US News and World Reports rankings, the state has the third-worst environmental quality, the 11th worst healthcare system, and the 14th worst roads and highways in the US. Until 2019, more people had been moving away from the state than moving to it for years.

But that’s not the way Republican Attorney General Curtis Hill sees things. He is supporting a bill introduced by Indiana State Senator Mike Young that would permit the AG to take over cases from county prosecutors when he believes there is a general declination policy for a certain charge—even when it’s a case of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The legislation is reportedly a reaction to new Marion County (Indianapolis) Prosecutor Ryan Mears’ declaration that he will no longer prosecute marijuana possession cases. Such a sweeping law would be the first in the nation, with prior attempts to rein in prosecutors being limited to specific cases and counties (like Philadelphia’s gun cases).

According to AG Hill’s spokeswoman Parvani Stover, his support is a result of a more general reaction to announced non-prosecution policies by chief local prosecutors around the country, like Rachael Rollins in Boston and Chesa Boudin in San Francisco. National pushback against reform prosecutors has recently been embodied by US Attorney General William Barr’s new presidential criminal justice commission and its woeful composition.

The Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Association (IPAA) is one of the most conservative in the nation, and that says a lot.It published a shocking letter back in 2017, declaring “ both medicinal and recreational marijuana legalization are wrong for Indiana” and that medical marijuana is, in their profoundly non-medical opinions, “not medicine.”

But even the IPAA is not standing for this attack on its legal mandate to utilize prosecutorial discretion, according to WIBC reporter Eric Berman. In an argument at the Indiana Senate’s Corrections and Criminal Law Committee hearing on January 28, the IPAA described discretion as “essential” to carrying out its duties. In this instance, the IPAA seems to be prioritizing principle over its political persuasions.

In contrast, after Aramis Ayala, the chief prosecutor of Orlando, Florida, announced in 2017 that she would never seek the death penalty, the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association (FPAA) showed its willingness to get decidedly wishy-washy regarding uses of prosecutorial discretion that its members happen to dislike. (In fact, the association’s chief lobbyist Buddy Jacobs, who narrowly avoided white collar crime convictions twice, was so desperate to swiftly decry Ayala’s move that he plagiarized a private defense attorney’s blog in writing a friend-of-the-court brief to the Florida Supreme Court on the issue.)

People who keep track of legislative assaults on prosecutorial discretion should not be surprised if Indiana’s bill passes anyway, however. Attorney General Hill remains an influential and hyperconservative presence in Indiana’s state government (despite being credibly accused of sexually assaulting several women at the height of the #MeToo movement). The bill passed the aforementioned Committee by a 6-3 vote, with only one Republican joining the Democrats in dissent.

If the bill does indeed become law, law professors and criminal justice scholars ought to track how the Attorney General uses this newfound power. Giving the AG the ability to snatch cases away from local court systems on the mere suspicion of a non-declination policy, especially given the dearth of charging decision data from virtually every single county prosecutor office nationwide, would be a worrying departure.

GOP

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Indiana’s top lawyer, Attorney General Curtis Hill, found himself on the witness stand this autumn as the nearly two-year-old sexual misconduct scandal clouding his administration continued to play out. The embattled AG insists he is innocent of charges that he groped a lawmaker and made drunken sexual advances toward three legislative staffers.

“Absolutely not,” Hill said in response to the accusations on the stand Oct. 24, toward the conclusion of a remarkable weeklong attorney discipline case. Hearing officer and former Justice Myra Selby presided over a case in which Hill’s accusers opened the testimony by describing his conduct as he milled about AJ’s Lounge at a now-infamous March 2018 party celebrating the end of that year’s session of the Indiana General Assembly.

Democratic Rep. Mara Candaleria Reardon testified that an intoxicated Hill firmly groped her buttocks beneath her backless dress, prompting her to tell him, “Back off. What the f—?” Hill’s other accusers — Gabrielle McLemore Brock, Niki DaSilva and Samantha Lozano — also testified that the AG made unwanted sexual advances toward them. The four separately have sued Hill and the state in federal court, a matter which is pending while Hill’s disciplinary case unfolds.

Potentially hanging in the balance is Hill’s ability to continue serving as attorney general. Selby will ultimately file a hearing officer’s report that may recommend a sanction against his law license, after which it will be up to the Indiana Supreme Court to determine what, if any, discipline it will impose.

Hill’s defense team argued against the proceedings, noting that the AG was not criminally charged by a special prosecutor and that the Indiana inspector general cleared him after investigating the allegations against him. While the disciplinary proceedings permitted Hill to mount a defense against the accusations, they also expanded the claims against him to include testimony of repeated sexual harassment from a former employee in the Elkhart County Prosecutor’s Office, back when Hill was the local elected officeholder.

As Hill continued to dismiss calls to resign from Gov. Eric Holcomb and legislative leaders in both parties because of the accusations against him, several lawyers announced their candidacies to unseat him at the ballot box next year, including one fellow Republican.

Curtis Hill, Indiana's new attorney general, to take on regulation, drugs

Republican state officials battling federal overreach recently gained another ally through Indiana’s election of incoming Attorney General Curtis Hill.