Former Portage Clerk-Treasurer Christopher Stidham will have to give up his law license and the chance of future work in the public sector, much less a run for office, after being sentenced Monday on a Level 6 felony count of conflict of interest.

“A white-collar crime is still a crime,” Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer said, later noting Stidham’s “scheming” in the case.

He was sentenced to one year in Porter County Jail, suspended and to be served on probation and must pay restitution. He had already paid $16,000 before his sentencing hearing and was to turn a check in for $40,564.55 to the County Clerk’s Office after the hearing. Some of the funds will go to the State Board of Accounts for a special audit, with the rest returning to the city of Portage.

Stidham, 38, of the 3900 block of Wingstem Drive, was charged in February 2020 with official misconduct, also a felony, for allegedly hiring his then-girlfriend, Rachel Glass, whom he later married, as a contractor for bookkeeping and other services for the city that were never provided.

“You talked about separating things into separate companies so you would be less likely to be caught, so Rachel would be less likely to be caught. That’s scheming,” Clymer said of Stidham’s presentencing investigation, prepared by the probation department.

Clymer served as special judge in the case after Porter Circuit Court Judge Mary DeBoer recused herself.

Mayor Sue Lynch, the lone witness to testify during the hearing, said the city of Portage needed to be made whole through restitution and Stidham had to be made accountable with a felony conviction.

“When our administration came into office, the clerk-treasurer’s office was in total disarray, beginning with the issue of

incomplete bank reconciliations from 2017 going forward, which the defendant’s wife was paid to do but were not done,” said Lynch, who took office in January 2020.

The city had to hire an outside accounting firm, at a cost of almost $29,000, to bring the city’s financial records up to date, and pay for an internal investigation by the city, Lynch said. Additionally, the city faced IRS fines at more than $255,000 because Stidham did not make filings with that agency.

“As mayor, I would be remiss not to mention that his criminal activity, as a public official, has been yet another blight on our city,” Lynch said, referencing the a recent second federal corruption conviction of former Mayor James Snyder.

Stidham agreed in November to plead guilty to a felony count of conflict of interest, with the hope of receiving a sentence for a Class A misdemeanor so he could preserve his law license.

Stidham, addressing the court and the Portage officials in the room, including Lynch, Council President Collin Czilli, D-5th, Councilman Brian Gulley, D-4th, and City Attorney Dan Whitten, said Monday marked “probably the most difficult day of my life.”

As a public official, he understood he was held to a higher standard and tried to make things right with restitution.

“There’s nothing I can say that can change the impact this has had on the city. As Mayor Lynch said, this is another black mark on the city,” he said, before apologizing to the city officials in court. “And I apologize to the residents, because it was the wrong thing to do.”

He said his world changed after he was no longer a public official and his voice cracked as he made his plea to Clymer.

“I do ask this court to enter this as a misdemeanor because I do have a family to support,” he said. “Having a felony conviction would make it extraordinarily difficult to provide for my family.”

Special Prosecutor Stanley Levco, appointed because Porter County Prosecutor Gary Germann recused himself from the case, said the two points before the court were whether to accept the plea agreement, and whether to accept it as a felony or a misdemeanor.

While Stidham lacked a prior criminal history and agreed to make restitution, “it doesn’t change the fact that he committed a crime,” Levco said, adding that what mattered more than what Stidham did was that he was an attorney and an elected official at the time.

Defense attorney Paul Stracci lobbied for the charge to be entered as a misdemeanor.

“He’s paying restitution not because he stole any money but because of a conflict of interest,” Stracci said. “He was contracting with someone he couldn’t lawfully contract with.”

Clymer said that while Stidham’s attorney called his client’s behavior “aberrant,” Stidham was scheming by breaking his then-girlfriend’s work into different companies in an attempt to avoid detection.

“Mr. Stidham, you were caught,” he said, adding Stidham took oaths as an attorney and an elected official, both of which he broke.

Most crimes entered as felonies can be reduced to misdemeanors if someone satisfactorily completes probation, Clymer said, but that wasn’t a choice he had in Stidham’s case.

The sentence, Clymer added, was harsh for Stidham both politically and professionally.

“It is not with joy that I do this, Mr. Stidham,” Clymer said, before wishing Stidham well.

Stidham, a Democrat, finished his second term as clerk-treasurer at the end of 2019. He ran unsuccessfully against Lynch in the spring primary that year for a spot on the general election ballot as a mayoral candidate.

A special audit conducted by the State Board of Accounts revealed a slew of problems, including paying Glass, now Stidham’s wife, for bookkeeping services that were never done and not submitting invoices for her businesses to the Board of Works between Jan. 1, 2015, and Dec. 31, 2016.

The investigation into Stidham involved unapproved payments made by Stidham’s office in 2015 and 2016 to Glass, who operated, at different times, three businesses that provided bookkeeping services on contract to the clerk-treasurer’s office: Keeping the Books; E.R.G. Advisors; and Paramount Technology Solutions.

The work by Glass continued until shortly before she and Stidham married.

According to the audit, there were no written contracts for the work done by Rachel Glass Stidham’s firms; the Board of Works minutes didn’t reflect approval of contracts with them; the invoices weren’t submitted to the board for approval; and the city did not properly file tax forms with the IRS for her businesses.

The genesis for the special investigation began in late June 2019 when then-Mayor John Cannon announced a committee’s findings “that predicted a ‘sufficient likelihood’ of unlawful conduct warranting further investigation by law enforcement and other officials.”

Cannon, who called on Stidham to resign, said at the time that he appointed a bipartisan executive committee in April of that year to investigate possible wrongdoing in the clerk-treasurer’s office.

That report was later turned over to the State Board of Accounts and Indiana State Police, agencies that went on to conduct their own investigation.

Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.