A special prosecutor said Tuesday that he will not file criminal charges against Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill over allegations he drunkenly groped four women, including an Indiana lawmaker, at a party, because it would be too difficult to prove his intentions, according to the Indianapolis Star.
The prosecutor, Daniel Sigler, said that even though he found the witnesses to be credible and believed the women, he did not believe he could prove Hill’s intent. “I investigated: ‘Did a crime occur there and could it be proven?’” Sigler said, according to the Star. “I decided that there was no crime that could be proven.”
According to the women, Hill groped them at a party in March at a bar in Indianapolis. Democratic Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon described Hill sliding his hand down her back and grabbing her buttocks.
Hill, a first-term Republican, has denied any wrongdoing, saying that it was possible he touched the women but that it would have been “incidental.”
According to the Associated Press, Sigler had considered bringing misdemeanor battery charges, but he ultimately decided that he could not prove Hill’s intent was “rude, insolent or angry,” as would be required by a battery charge, and he said that the circumstances surrounding the incident made it too difficult to get to the truth. “It was in a bar,” he said, according to the AP. “It was in the early morning hours. Free alcohol was being served and flowing.”
In a report released by Indiana Inspector General Lori Torres, her office found multiple eyewitnesses who had called Hill’s behavior inappropriate and observed unwanted touching.
After Sigler’s announcement, the four women indicated they would file civil suits against Hill, as well as against the attorney general’s office and the state.
