Just under two weeks ago, Misty Noel walked into a Clark County courtroom with her family and friends behind her and confirmed her guilty plea to theft and tax evasion.
Noel, the estranged wife of former Clark County Sheriff Jamey Noel, was sentenced to six years — though she’ll likely serve about a year — and left the courtroom in handcuffs.
“The book is closed, and I think the Netflix series is over,” Special Prosecutor Ric Hertel said after the hearing. “It's time for me to go. The job's finished here.”
Hertel was speaking of the three Noel family members now convicted in a massive investigation of the former sheriff that started two years ago.
But that may not have been the finale many thought.
Days after Special Judge Larry Medlock accepted Noel’s plea and sentenced her, he ordered her back to court. He’d seen a TV interview she’d done the day before she was sentenced in which she essentially said she was not aware of her crimes.
Now, she may be held in contempt of court.
At the hearing, scheduled for Aug. 12, Medlock will also consider whether to set aside her plea and send the matter to trial, “as a result of Misty Noel telling the world that she did not ‘knowingly and intentionally’ commit the crime of theft.”
Valena Beety, the Robert H. McKinney professor of law at Indiana University Mauer School of Law and a board member of the Indiana Innocence Project, said Noel’s television interview could impact her plea agreement.
“A judge can only accept a guilty plea to a crime, waiving a trial…if it is knowing and voluntary,” she said.
Beety said plea agreements can depend on the person accused of the crime agreeing to a set of facts and saying they intentionally committed the crime.
Medlock said in his order that knowledge and intent are required for a theft charge.
Beety said the hearing means Noel will have to explain her actions to the judge. If the judge finds her in contempt of court, that doesn’t necessarily mean additional prison time, Beety said. But it’s possible the prosecutor could decide to file an additional criminal charge.
Online court records do not show any additional charges filed as of Tuesday.
Noel’s comments
Misty Noel was charged early last year with 10 counts of theft and tax evasion. Investigators say she spent more than $660,000 on a credit card belonging to New Chapel EMS over several years for personal items including clothing, food, jewelry, trips, household goods, college books and “tuition-associated items.” They say she did not report the spending as income on her joint tax returns.
The prosecutor alleged Noel “knowingly or intentionally exert[ed] unauthorized control over the property of Utica Township Volunteer Fire Fighter Association, with the intent to deprive said entity of any part of the use or value of the property.”
In an interview with WLKY that aired July 3 — the day she was sentenced — Noel said she “foolishly was not aware of our finances. I trusted [Jamey Noel] to be the one to take care of our bills, our taxes. Everything that was financial, that was more his area.”
Her husband, Jamey Noel, ran New Chapel. She said in the interview she incorrectly thought he owned it.
“My perception of New Chapel and what I had been told by my husband was that it was his private company, it was his company…I know I’m not the only one who felt that way and who knew that because he said that to several people within the community,” she said.
Noel said she is responsible for failing to know her finances.
“But as far as there being intent, I never intended to hurt people,” she said. She said she wasn’t aware she was doing anything illegal, and said she
was “pained” and “saddened” to see how her actions have harmed people.
She said she and her daughters have been dehumanized in the public eye.
“What I want people to understand [is] that there is another side of the story,” she said. “There is a series of events that has occurred that has led me to where I am at today. And so I want to be able to explain that so that people receive the whole story and not just one side from the state of Indiana."
At his sentencing for more than two dozen felonies last October, Jamey Noel said his family didn’t know about his business or how he ran it, and that he did their tax returns.
“I controlled everything when it came to our family's finances… my family trusted me to do that and I obviously didn't do it,” he said at the hearing.
Misty Noel’s defense attorney Bart McMahon declined to comment. She remains in custody and her plea is still in effect.
Coverage of Southern Indiana is funded, in part, by Samtec Inc., the Hazel & Walter T. Bales Foundation, and the Caesars Foundation of Floyd County.
