IBJNews

Ex-IU hoops player Leary avoids prison time in fraud

Back to TopCommentsE-mailPrint

Former Indiana University basketball player Todd Leary has avoided prison time for his role in an ex-business partner's multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme.

An Allen County judge on Monday sentenced Leary to two years of work release or home detention followed by two years on probation.

The Journal Gazette reported that could change since Leary faces unrelated charges in Hamilton County that he stole high-end appliances from foreclosed homes in the Noblesville area.

Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull on Monday accepted Leary's July guilty plea to misappropriating title insurance escrow funds. Leary agreed with prosecutors to pay nearly $295,000 in restitution.

Prosecutors say Leary worked for Joseph Garretson, a title insurance broker who pleaded guilty in a major mortgage fraud case. Garretson, who operated Fort Wayne Title and Fort Wayne Mortgage, was sentenced in late June to 11 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to three counts of breaking the state loan-brokering law. He was also fined  $5,000 and ordered him to repay his victims $3.4 million

Investigators found more than a dozen cases in which Garretson refinanced mortgages for clients but didn't pay off the original loans, causing them to default.

Leary was a star at Lawrence North High School and played for the Hoosiers in 1989-94, including their 1992 NCAA Final Four team. He was an analyst for IU's radio broadcasts when he was arrested in February.

On Sept. 2, a Hamilton County judge entered a not guilty plea for Leary on burglary and theft charges. Leary, who lives in Carmel, was arrested following a five-month investigation.

According to a probable cause affidavit, Leary paid two other men to move refrigerators and other appliances out of foreclosed homes and then sold them to an Indianapolis appliance store. When investigators questioned Leary, he allegedly told them that he worked for a company that bought, repaired and then resold foreclosed homes. Leary told police that he picked the homes off an auction listing on the Hamilton County sheriff's website. But the sheriff's department denied ever selling any homes to any such company or to Leary, and the homes that were burglarized were tracked to other owners.


ADVERTISEMENT
  • Why all the fuss about an IU ex?
    Who cares that he was an IU jock? Is that the extent of his granduer in life? All news reports mention this. It is a minor thing---days gone by. Indiana and their sports! There is more to life--alot more.
  • Life Isn't Fair
    This guy is a menace and all he gets is home detention.....wonder how much his I.U. celebrity played in him getting this light sentence????

Post a comment to this story

COMMENTS POLICY
We reserve the right to remove any post that we feel is obscene, profane, vulgar, racist, sexually explicit, abusive, or hateful.
 
You are legally responsible for what you post and your anonymity is not guaranteed.
 
Posts that insult, defame, threaten, harass or abuse other readers or people mentioned in IBJ editorial content are also subject to removal. Please respect the privacy of individuals and refrain from posting personal information.
 
No solicitations, spamming or advertisements are allowed. Readers may post links to other informational websites that are relevant to the topic at hand, but please do not link to objectionable material.
 
We may remove messages that are unrelated to the topic, encourage illegal activity, use all capital letters or are unreadable.
 

Messages that are flagged by readers as objectionable will be reviewed and may or may not be removed. Please do not flag a post simply because you disagree with it.

Sponsored by
ADVERTISEMENT

facebook - twitter on Facebook & Twitter

Follow on TwitterFollow IBJ on Facebook:
Follow on TwitterFollow IBJ's Tweets on these topics:
 
Subscribe to IBJ
  1. Well, we could blame ABC because they haven't advertised the INDY 500....not during the HUGE TV rating shows like Dancing with the Stars (of which IICS driver Helio Castroneves is a former champion). He never won a CART championship, did he?

    We could blame the new car...because it's ugly and has a V6 that has less horsepower than the pace car. CART (to my knowledge) never had that problem with cars they presented at the speedway years 1979 through 1995.

    We could blame the fencepost, but that would be crass. Or maybe Danica? Or maybe Jean Alesi....or boost increases from constant rules tampering. Maybe we could blame Penske who still is winning everything as usual.

    Maybe we can blame the world for not understanding the the great Indy gods who regularly twist things in such ways that we mere mortals must only accept, but never question.

    So, it does beg the question....who is responsible if the series and Indy continues to flounder? Are the responsibilities so diffuse and complicated that no one really is to blame for it's fall from grace?

    I urge the speedway to sign on for 7 more years of ABC coverage and 7 more years of NBC Sports Network coverage. It been win-win so far....*cough* *cough*

  2. "They're problem was thinking they were bigger than the institution that made their existence possible. That turned out to be a mistake."

    The above quote made by Disciple shows his continued inability to grasp a simple concept: CART is dead. Twice. It provided a brilliant stage for some of the best open wheel racing in all the past century of racing. It's gone DOOD, get over it.

    PLEASE explain, Mr. Disciple of INDYCAR, why you continually hammer home, even on the eve of the 2012 Indy 500, this same point...over and over? Seriously, why does the legacy of CART haunt you so much?

    The same problems that affected the sport for over a century of AOW racing STILL affect it now. Your answers (or lack thereof) belittle the very sport you claim to love. Indy rots in your hands yet you request status quo. You negate salient points with drivel...always.

    Indy is not going to die. But, it is dying...are you willing to accept that? "Indy is a hot mess"....it's true. Yet you want it that way? What is wrong with you?

  3. I just want to make sure I am reading this right - Wellpoint is eliminating 112 employees. Wellpoint is a customer of Repucare. Repucare is creating 82 jobs. I sure hope they are hiring Wellpoint employees. Does not make sense!

  4. Triscuts...love um!

  5. Of course the fair will go on. Don't you big city reporters understand county fairs? Get outside the beltway and see what life is really like!

ADVERTISEMENT