Ex-Indiana Secretary of State's law license suspended

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The state Supreme Court has suspended former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White's law license for two years following his 2012 conviction on felony charges including voter fraud, perjury and theft.

The court issued the suspension Tuesday without automatic reinstatement. The Republican was elected in 2010. He was automatically removed from office in 2012 after jurors in Hamilton County convicted him of the felonies. He served one year of house arrest.

The state high court said the disciplinary penalty usually would be stiffer but noted that White's license already has been under interim suspension for four years while his case proceeded. White can petition the court to reinstate his license after two years.

"A petition for reinstatement would be granted only if he is able to prove by clear and convincing evidence his fitness to resume the practice of law, a burden that likely will be particularly steep given the seriousness of (White's) misconduct," the justices said.

The case against White, a graduate of the Valparaiso School of Law, stemmed from his using his ex-wife's home in Fishers as his voting address in 2010 while serving on the Indianapolis suburb's town council and running for secretary of state as he lived at his then-fiancee's townhouse.

In December 2014 a state appeals court upheld three of White's felony convictions for perjury, voting in an incorrect precinct and theft, which was for wrongly accepting his Fishers Town Council salary while not living in his council district.

The appeals court judges ruled that White's convictions for submitting a fraudulent voter's registration and casting a fraudulent election ballot represented double jeopardy with other charges and that a perjury conviction for giving a false address on a marriage license application was improper.