Wells Superior Court
Criminal Cases
Henry E. Delcid, 28, Fort Wayne, pleaded guilty to operating a vehicle with an alcohol concentration equivalency of .15 percent or greater, a Class A misdemeanor.
Sentenced to a year in the Wells County Jail, with all but six days suspended — credited as time served, and placed on probation for 359 days.
Ordered to serve 38 days of home detention, pay for his blood test as well as court costs and probation fees.
Driver’s license suspended for 30 days.
As part of a plea agreement, charges of driving while suspended with a prior conviction for the same offense, a Class A misdemeanor; knowingly or intentionally operating a motor vehicle while never having received a driver’s license, a Class C misdemeanor, and driving left of center, a Class C infraction, were all dismissed.
On Jan. 29, on Marzane Road near Zanesville, a sheriff’s deputy spotted a blue 2008 GMC Yukon sport utility vehicle pulled off on the berm with its turn signal on. The deputy found that odd but continued on and then noticed that the Yukon turned around in the road and started to head the opposite direction. The deputy also turned around and followed.
The deputy observed that the vehicle was weaving within its lane as it headed south on Marzane, so the deputy pulled the vehicle over.
The deputy observed in his report that Delcid appeared intoxicated and blew a .207 percent alcohol concentration equivalency on a Breathalyzer test. The legal limit for intoxication in Indiana is .08 percent alcohol concentration equivalency.
The deputy decided not to perform field sobriety tests as Delcid indicated he understood very little English. Delcid did allegedly admit to the deputy he had six beers to drink.
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Preliminary plea of not guilty entered for Terry Lee Carr, 48, Bluffton, charged with two counts of battery by bodily waste to a public safety officer, both Level 6 felonies; operating a vehicle while intoxicated endangering a person with a prior conviction for the same or a similar offense in the past seven years, a Level 6 felony; criminal mischief, a Class B misdemeanor; and disorderly conduct, a Class B misdemeanor. Bond continued at $26,000. Jeffrey Stineburg appointed public defender.
On May 22, Bluffton police received a driving complaint about a van weaving all over the road northbound on 450E from Ind. 124.
Police also received information that the driver might be headed to an address on Sunset Drive. The officer went to Sunset and spotted a Chrysler van matching the description given by the complainant. The officer was also stopped by a relative of Carr’s and was told that Carr was at his residence on Sunset. When officers approached the front door of the apartment complex, they reported being able to hear a man and a woman arguing inside the apartment.
The investigating officer observed in his report to the court that Carr fumbled with opening the door to the apartment and seemed to be struggling with speaking. He allegedly attempted to shut the door again but was blocked from doing so. The officers spoke with the woman inside the apartment who confirmed that Carr had been driving earlier and that he had been drinking “all day.”
Carr was also reportedly was covered in blood after being beaten by several men at the Bluffton Woods mobile home park.
As Carr was placed under arrest, he reportedly was spitting blood in the patrol car of the arresting officer. He allegedly continued to do so even after being told to stop. He allegedly also continued to do so at Bluffton Regional Medical Center where he was taken for a medical examination as well as a blood draw. He reportedly spit blood on one of the arms of the officers detaining him as well as on the wall of the emergency room and the equipment in the room.
Carr reportedly blew a .189 percent alcohol concentration equivalency on a certified breath test at the Wells County Jail.
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Sara M. Wilhite, 39, rural Bluffton, pleaded guilty to operating a vehicle with an alcohol concentration equivalency of .15 percent or more, a Class A misdemeanor.
Sentenced to a year in the Wells County Jail — with all but two days suspended — credited as time served, and placed on probation for 363 days.
Ordered to serve 90 days of home detention, pay court costs, probation fees and restitution to her victim in an amount to be determined.
Driver’s license suspended for 30 days.
As part of a plea agreement, charges of operating a vehicle while intoxicated endangering a person, a Class A misdemeanor, and leaving the scene of a property damage accident, a Class B misdemeanor, were both dismissed.
Wilhelm was driving on Ind. 116 near 300W May 22 when she drove off the road and clipped an REMC electric pole guy wire, causing the wire to snap upward and strike the power lines. The resulting short created a power outage to homes in the area.
A caller reporting the outage also reported to 911 that there was a car in the road with its emergency hazard lights on. The car then left the scene and drove away.
The investigating sheriff’s deputy arrived and located maroon sideview mirror car parts in the roadway. A maroon car with a damaged sideview mirror was pulled over by a Markle police officer near the intersection of Ind. 116 and U.S. 224.
Wilhite was the driver of the car. She reportedly failed field sobriety tests, admitted to having drank alcohol, and blew a .232 percent alcohol concentration equivalency on a Breathalyzer test.
She also reportedly admitted to the officer when he asked her if she had ever performed field sobriety tests before, “Yes, I have. I’m a felon.”
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Preliminary plea of not guilty entered for Kevin Eugene Mock, 57, Fort Wayne, charged with driving while suspended with a prior conviction for the same offense, a Class A misdemeanor, and operating a motor vehicle without insurance, a Class A infraction.
On May 21, a Bluffton police officer spotted a van heading north on Main Street that had two flat rear tires and appeared to be dragging low to the ground. The van pulled into the parking lot of the Villa North Mall and parked diagonally across several spots.
The officer spoke with the driver of the van — identified as Mock — and he explained he knew about the flat tires and that he was trying to transport all of the items he had in commercial storage in Bluffton back to his home in Fort Wayne.
The officer performed a license check on Mock and discovered his license was suspended.
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Preliminary plea of not guilty entered for Au Bi Dah, 30, Fort Wayne, charged with driving while suspended with a prior conviction for the same offense, a Class A misdemeanor, and leaving the scene of a property damage accident, a Class B misdemeanor. Bond continued at $2,500. Larry Mock appointed public defender.
Preliminary plea of not guilty entered for Sha Lay Ha, 32, Fort Wayne. Bond continued at $1,000. Allison Sprunger appointed public defender.
On Aug. 31, 2021, Bluffton police responded to a residence on Morgan Street on a report of a suspicious pickup truck driving around the complainant’s house. The people in the vehicle were honking the horn. At one point, the pickup truck backed into a parked 2001 Chrysler.
Shortly afterward, a Bluffton police officer was flagged down by a woman driving a pickup truck with a male passenger. The woman was seeking directions to a residence close to where the accident had occurred. The officer assumed the truck was the suspect vehicle and asked that the driver of the truck follow him. The driver, later identified as Ha, reportedly did not follow through on that request
A man at the scene of the crash said that the couple in the pickup truck had been at a residence to look at a sofa that the man’s father had for sale. They then left quickly. The man showed the officer a Facebook page the couple had used to contact the man with the sofa for sale. The officer recognized the page as a bogus page.
The officer had recorded the number on the license plate of the pickup truck. A check of the number showed the plate was registered to Ha. The officer contacted Ha and set up an interview. During the interview, Ha reportedly told the officer — through an interpreter — that the reason she and her husband, Dah, left the scene so quickly was because Ha’s son had gotten sick at their residence in Fort Wayne and she was trying to get back home to be with him. She reportedly told the officer that she texted the owner of the sofa about the emergency and that she would be back the next day. However there reportedly was no evidence of such a text on either Ha’s phone nor on the phone of the sofa owner. She reportedly denied having been in a traffic accident.
Witnesses to the accident, however, countered Ha’s sworn statement stating that Dah, not Ha, had been driving the pickup truck at the time of the accident. A relative of Dah’s — apparently looking for information about the investigation — also allegedly admitted to the officer that Dah, not Ha, had been the driver of the pickup truck. Dah then later reportedly contacted the officer and denied being the driver and told the officer “he would let the courts decide.”
Dah has a suspended driver’s license.
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Scott Allen Crouse, 39, Huntington, pleaded guilty to driving while suspended with a prior conviction for the same offense, a Class A misdemeanor.
Sentenced to a year in the Wells County Jail, with all but 10 days suspended — credited as time served, and placed on probation for 355 days.
Crouse was ordered to obtain valid driving privileges within 30 days of the expiration of his probation period. He was also ordered to pay court costs and probation fees.
On March 18, a Bluffton police officer pulled over a sport utility vehicle Crouse was driving after noticing it had only one working taillight. Crouse admitted to the officer his driver’s license was suspended. His license had been suspended Aug. 9, 2018, for failure to pay a fine for a traffic violation and was not eligible for reinstatement until Dec. 31, 2024.
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Preliminary plea of not guilty entered for Kelly A. Kipp, 59, Bluffton, charged with two counts of invasion of privacy, both Class A misdemeanors. Bond continued at $25,000.
Kipp is charged with violating a protective order by trying to contact the protected female using his son’s cell phone and by trying to use a third party to contact the protected woman in March.
