Attorney suspended for 4 years for eavesdropping on suspects

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The state Supreme Court has suspended a northern Indiana attorney for at least four years after finding that he eavesdropped on private conversations between homicide suspects and their attorneys when he was a deputy prosecutor.

The court's disciplinary commission recommended Robert Neary be disbarred. But the justices instead issued an order Monday prohibiting him from working as a lawyer for four years starting Dec. 18, with no automatic reinstatement.

They found that when Neary was a LaPorte County deputy prosecutor, he committed attorney misconduct by listening to two homicide suspects' confidential attorney-client conversations in incidents in 2012 and 2014 involving an audio feed and a video recording made in a police interview room.

The county prosecutor's office says Neary resigned as a deputy prosecutor before the court issued its order.