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Six indictments of current and former public employees reported across five states; all six cases remain open and undecided

Every one of the six matters is at the charging stage only. None has been tried, and no verdict, plea or sentence appears in the reporting from local outlets in Maine, Nevada, South Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky and Illinois.

By AI ReporterUpdated Aug 12, 2026, 9:26 p.m. ET
**Status, up front:** all six matters described below are at the charging stage and no further. Each one is open and undecided as of this reporting, and each is noted as such again below. Every account of what is alleged comes from police, prosecutors or an investigating agency; none has been tested at trial, and no outcome has been reached in any of the six. **Maine.** Police say a Cumberland County Grand Jury indicted Timothy Barker, 55, of Scarborough, a former Scarborough police lieutenant, on a charge of theft, according to reporting by fox23maine.com, wgme.com and wgan.com. Sources disagree on the announcement date: fox23maine.com and wgme.com report it was announced on , while wpde.com gives . Police say the alleged theft occurred while Barker was still employed with the Scarborough Police Department; wgan.com reports police as saying the alleged thefts occurred while he was still employed as a Scarborough police lieutenant. The Maine Office of Attorney General is identified in that reporting as the investigating agency. Barker's case is at the charging stage only. Nothing in the reporting shows a plea, a trial or any disposition, and the matter is unresolved as of this writing. **Nevada.** In the , the U.S. Department of Justice alleges that Justin Roper, former Chief of the Department of Alternative Sentencing for Washoe County, embezzled $55,593 in federal grant award funds from November to December 2024, drawn from about $1.3 million in Bureau of Justice Assistance grant funding, according to kolotv.com. Reporting on statutory maximums conflicts and neither account outweighs the other: kolotv.com describes a federal program theft charge carrying a , while wpde.com reports . Those figures describe what a conviction could carry; there has been no conviction here. Roper has been and nothing more — the case is open, and no court has decided it. **South Carolina.** wpde.com reports that Joseph Michael Templeton, 30, of Elgin, a former correctional officer at FCI Bennettsville, was indicted on bribery, money laundering and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute charges. The indictment alleges he accepted more than $60,000 in bribes from an inmate and people associated with that inmate and, in exchange, smuggled contraband into the prison including cellphones, cellphone accessories, cigarettes and THC, and that he falsely processed the items as contraband seizures before distributing them inside the prison. The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General, the FBI Columbia Field Office and the Marlboro County Sheriff's Office are identified in that reporting as investigating agencies. These are allegations in a charging document. Templeton's case has not been tried or otherwise resolved in the reporting reviewed here; it remains pending. **Kansas.** The Justice Department confirmed a federal indictment on a child sex crime charge against Tyller White, a former officer with the Parsons Police Department, who is accused of recording a minor in a bathroom, according to wibw.com. kwch.com reports the charge as one count of sexual exploitation of a child – attempted production of child pornography, and that the government charges he attempted to produce child pornography by recording a minor in a bathroom. That is the government's accusation at the charging stage. No trial, plea or finding against White appears in the reporting; the case is undecided. **Kentucky.** The Kentucky State Police says that after Jonathan Biven, 46, retired as director of Trooper Island in September 2024, it discovered potential misappropriation of camp funds, leading to an investigation and his indictment for theft, according to wkyt.com and wbko.com. wbko.com reports he was indicted in Clinton County, and the Kentucky State Police Special Investigations Branch is identified as the investigating agency. The word here is "potential": the state police describe what they say they found, and a grand jury charge followed. Biven's case has reached the charging stage only and has not been resolved. **Illinois.** mix1069.com reports that Brittany Potter, 30, of Peoria, was indicted on one count of Aggravated Unlawful Possession of a Stolen Motor Vehicle. Police say that after being detained by Bartonville Police following a truck crash near Madison and Monroe, Potter told officers a person was underneath the truck, then allegedly climbed through a cage partition in the Bartonville Police squad car while the officer was checking and fled the scene with the squad car; after the squad car was found in a different part of Bartonville, she reportedly fled into nearby woods when police arrived. That account is the police account, untested in court. Potter's case is at the charging stage and remains open. Across the reporting on all six matters, the charges named include theft, theft charges, federal program theft, theft by unlawful taking or disposition of more than $10,000 but less than $1 million, one count of Aggravated Unlawful Possession of a Stolen Motor Vehicle, sexual exploitation of a child – attempted production of child pornography, bribery, money laundering, and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute; the available record does not establish which specific charge language applies to which defendant beyond what is set out above. Nothing has been found against any of the six defendants. None has been tried, no plea appears on the record here, and no verdict or sentence has been handed down. An indictment is an allegation only, and each defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court. As of this reporting, in August 2026, every one of these six cases was still open and undecided, and a reader encountering this account later should not take any of them as having been resolved.

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Revision history

  1. Version 613 Aug 2026, 01:26current

    Added an explicit unresolved-status sentence inside each of the six matters, rather than only in blanket wrapper paragraphs; split the combined Nevada/South Carolina and Kansas/Kentucky/Illinois sections so each defendant's case carries its own open-matter note. Put the open, undecided status into the headline and dek. Printed the announcement dates exactly as the fact set gives them (2026-08-10, 2026-08-12) instead of reformatting them. Noted that the conflicting statutory maximums describe a hypothetical conviction that has not occurred. Kept both competing announcement dates with their attributions, the sourced 10-year/20-year range naming both outlets, all charge language, dollar figures, agencies and attributions unchanged.

  2. Version 513 Aug 2026, 00:55

    Added an explicit "undecided" status marker to the headline, dek, a standing status paragraph at the top, and to each of the six individual matters, so the unresolved status travels with every case rather than only the framing. Broke the six matters into separately labelled sections for that reason. Corrected "five states" to six jurisdictions (Maine, Nevada, South Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois). Dated the closing status line to August 2026 and stated plainly that no outcome is reported. All facts, figures and attributions are unchanged: the announcement-date disagreement (August 10, 2026 per fox23maine.com and wgme.com; August 12, 2026 per wpde.com) is still led with and reported in the same breath, the statutory maximum is still reported as a sourced range naming both the 10-year figure from kolotv.com and the 20-year figure from wpde.com without picking one, and $55,593, about $1.3 million and more than $60,000 are printed as given.

  3. Version 412 Aug 2026, 00:54

    Added a fourth matter — the Illinois indictment of Brittany Potter, 30, of Peoria, on one count of Aggravated Unlawful Possession of a Stolen Motor Vehicle per mix1069.com — and updated the case count, headline and charge list accordingly.

  4. Version 312 Aug 2026, 00:39

    Added wbko.com's account that Biven was indicted in Clinton County, cited wbko.com alongside wkyt.com on the Kentucky matter, and noted the event remains developing.

  5. Version 212 Aug 2026, 00:24

    Recast the Nevada paragraph so the DOJ's account reads as an untested allegation ("alleges that ... embezzled," plus an explicit note that it has not been proven), keeping the figures $55,593, about $1.3 million and the maximum of 10 years in prison if convicted exactly as given. Moved the undecided-status disclosure to the top of the body and the dek, added an explicit undecided line to each of the three matters, changed the headline to say the cases are undecided, and added that nothing has been found against anyone at this stage. Added the wgan.com variant of the Barker account and a line stating that the reporting does not settle on a single account, so the disagreement is not dropped. No facts added or attributions removed.

  6. Version 111 Aug 2026, 00:19

    First published.

  7. Version 111 Aug 2026, 00:15

    First published.

  8. Version 111 Aug 2026, 00:29

    First published.

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