The Indianapolis Two

In 261 stories over seven months, the Indianapolis Star has published accounts of police abuses and corruption: flagrant examples of bribery, theft, extortion and protecting prostitutes. Though the expose series caused a shake-up of police leadership, Marion County Prosecutor Noble Pearcy has obtained indictments of only five cops. But next week the Star's marathon sleuthing will produce a chilling and unexpected result: two of the paper's investigative reporters are to be arraigned on charges of conspiring to bribe a police lieutenant.

The newsmen, William E. Anderson, 48, and Richard E. Cady, 34, are police-beat veterans who have spent nearly their entire careers at the Star. They have been part of a four-member Star team since it was formed last year to undertake the anticorruption series. The quartet interviewed some 700 people, including 48 policemen. According to the Star, a police informant named Larry Keen last spring approached the reporters and offered to bribe a policeman to show them how easy it was. The newsmen say that they demurred. Keen told them he would nonetheless hand an envelope containing money to Police Lieut. Lawrence Turner at a local restaurant. The reporters showed up to observe the exchange from their car, they say, "as a matter of curiosity." They reported the incident in a Star story May 26, and did a piece Aug. 13 on Keen's role.

The grand jury indictment alleges that the reporters conspired with Keen to bribe the lieutenant. The ostensible purpose: to halt a police investigation of a burglary. The Star management and staff, and many others in Indianapolis, regard the charge as a spurious attempt to discredit the exposes. Pearcy is up for re-election this fall, and though the Star usually supports Republicans, it has attacked his record. "This is a trumped-up affair and the prosecutor knows it," says Managing Editor Robert Early. "It's nothing but goddamned hokum." Says Douglass R. Shortridge, president of the Indianapolis Bar Association: "If this is the prosecutor's answer to criticism, then it is a sad day for our community."

Lawful Secret. Significantly, neither Keen nor the policeman who allegedly accepted the bribe has been indicted. Prosecutor Pearcy maintains that the grand jury has given full consideration to the Star's revelations, but cannot find enough evidence to frame indictments for the offenses reported. He has little to say about the charges against the reporters: "Grand jury testimony is secret by law, and I can't tell you more about the evidence. The case will be set for trial and tried like any other case."

If Anderson and Cady are brought to trial, a likelihood at this point, conviction is hardly certain. Conspiracy charges are difficult to prove even in obvious cases. Still, Star executives are angry at what they view as harassment. They are also disappointed by the fact that their series has produced such meager results so far. Mayor Richard G. Lugar has brought in a new police chief and formed a citizens' committee to study the department. He has accepted many of the committee's recommendations for reform, such as establishing incompetence as a ground for dismissal. The FBI is looking into the Star's allegations, and the grand jury, which has already heard testimony from 161 witnesses on the matter, is still in session. But grand juries rarely get out of the prosecutor's control.

Eugene S. Pulliam, the Star's assistant publisher, reluctantly acknowledges that there are limits to a newspaper's role in battling corruption. "Our reporters are getting pretty damn frustrated," he says. "We are convinced that there are crooks there. But we can't subpoena, we can't grant immunity, and we can't indict. All we can do is report."

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