Brown County commissioners’ president Jerry Pittman has pleaded guilty to a drunken driving charge and received a one-year suspended jail sentence.
Pittman, 75, is serving the last year of his second term on the rural county’s Board of Commissioners. He lost his bid for a third term when Tim J. Clark beat him by 89 votes in the May Republican primary.
On June 21, Pittman pleaded guilty in Brown Circuit Court to a misdemeanor charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated endangering a person. A second misdemeanor, operating a vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration between .08 and .15, was dismissed through a plea agreement.
Pittman will be on probation for one year. He has to pay $389.50 in court costs.
A Brown County Sheriff’s deputy arrested Pittman in January of 2023 after the commissioner's Chevrolet Silverado truck went off Petro Road and crashed in a creek.
The deputy’s report said Pittman’s eyes were red and he was unsteady on his feet, had slurred speech and smelled of alcohol after the accident.
The case took a turn in May when the Morgan County prosecutor, who was appointed, learned that a Brown County court bailiff said Pittman had requested a list of jurors that would be on call for June.
Pittman’s trial was set for June 28.
The prosecutor soon asked the trial be moved to Bartholomew County. But on the day of a hearing on the matter before James Worton, a Bartholomew County Superior Court judge assigned to the case, Pittman pleaded guilty.
With Pittman out of the District 3 commissioners' race, the candidates on the ballot for the November general election are Clark, the Republican, along with Democrat Justin Schwenk and Greg Taggart, who is running as an independent.
Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
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