April 28, 1998

Times staffer who has been investigating allegations involving drug task force busted on 4-year-old warrants.

BY JOE CARROLL

Times Staff Writer

CROWN POINT—The Lake County Sheriff’s Department arrested a Times reporter Friday who has been investigating allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the Lake County Drug Task Force.

Two detectives from the sheriff’s internal affairs division arrested Times staff writer Daniel J. Yovich about 1:30 p.m. at The Times’ Munster office.

Several months ago, Yovich was subjected to a search by sheriff’s deputies.

Friday’s arrest, which followed a series of stories Yovich recently wrote detailing allegations of corruption and misappropriation of resources at the drug task force, was for two misdemeanor warrants dating back as far as 1993.

Yovich was released on $2,000 bond about 6 p.m., after attempts by the Lake County prosecutor’s office to get him released on his own recognizance failed.

Sheriff John Buncich refused to discuss the arrest when approached by a reporter Friday afternoon.

"No comment," Buncich said as a secretary pulled the blinds and he walked into a back room in his administrative offices.

However, a few hours later, Buncich’s public relations chief issued a tersely worded statement that blamed the possible loss of millions of dollars in drug task force grants on The Times, an apparent reference to Yovich’s stories.

"I have been advised that congressional funding may not be renewed because of negative reporting by The Times," the written statement said. "I, as your sheriff, along with other police chiefs throughout Lake County, will not permit this to happen."

The officers who made the arrest—Det. Pat Tracy and Sgt. Robert

Joseph did not return phone calls Friday. Joseph is head of the sheriff’s internal affairs division; Tracy works in the same office.

Yovich, who joined The Times eight months ago, was arrested on two separate misdemeanor warrants. The first dealt with a probation revocation hearing from August 1993; the second warrant was from an April 1994 hearing on a drunken driving charge.

Such warrants are forwarded to the Sheriff’s Department’s warrants division immediately after they are issued by the courts. That means the warrants against Yovich have been languishing in the Sheriff’s Department for at least four years and are among thousands of such warrants that have not been served by the sheriff’s department.

No one from the warrants division was available to explain why the warrants surfaced at this time or why no attempt was made in the last eight months to arrest Yovich on the numerous occasions he has interviewed the sheriff and other law enforcement officials at the Sheriff’s Department offices in Crown Point.

In addition, during two separate traffic stops in recent months, police computer checks of Yovich’s driver’s license showed no outstanding warrants, according to Hammond and Griffith police.

"It’s been no secret to anyone in the county where they could find me day or night," Yovich said in a statement from the Lake County Jail on Friday afternoon. "I have received no notification from the courts on this matter.

I believed the issues had been resolved. Why did this surface today from the Sheriff’s Department?

"If there are issues that are unresolved, I am not aware of them, but I am eager to learn the details and to resolve them as quickly as possible."

Shortly after the sheriff secreted himself in his back office Friday, he summoned the department’s public relations officer, Loy Roberson, to meet with him. Roberson told a reporter he would have information on the arrest after the meeting.

But when contacted later, Roberson said he knew nothing about the arrest or the charges leading up to it.

"They’re not here," Roberson said, referring to Buncich and other top aides, "and there is no press release on it."

Two months ago, Yovich was searched for a recording device by Sheriff’s Department officials when he began writing about problems at the sheriff’s drug task force, including an investigator who was arrested by the FBI for allegedly shaking down a drug dealer.

The officers who conducted the search indicated they suspected Yovich was providing information to federal investigators, though Buncich later described the incident as a joke among friends.

More recently, Yovich’s stories have detailed the widening scope of a federal probe into alleged mismanagement and misappropriation of resources at the drug task force, and possible conflicts of interest with those overseeing the operation.

"The motives of the Sheriff’s Department are highly suspect with Yovich’s arrest," Times Executive Editor William Nangle said Friday. "First came the search in the shower stall and now an arrest that may be questionable. It is interesting that the reporter bringing to light allegations of misconduct is arrested by the very department about which he is writing.

"If Yovich has a prior legal matter that must be resolved, we will urge— as we would any citizen—that he deal with it as quickly as possible."

Yovich, a 36-year-old Hammond resident, was a foreign correspondent for United Press International in Bosnia from January 1994 to June 1996. He then worked for the Daily Southtown in Chicago before coming to work for The Times in August 1997.

 Copyright The Times of Northwest Indiana.