Hoffman Houses a Rapist: Delaware County’s Soft Prosecutor Turns a Level 1 Felony Into a Free Pass—and Now the Community Pays the Price

Muncie, Indiana — While hardworking Hoosiers lock their doors and keep a wary eye on their neighborhoods, Delaware County Prosecutor Eric Hoffman has decided that a man originally charged with rape, strangulation, domestic battery with a deadly weapon, residential entry, intimidation, and stalking deserves nothing more than a comfortable home-detention sentence. Brandon Lee Resler, 31, walked away from a Level 1 felony rape charge as part of a plea deal. The rape count was simply dropped. He pleaded guilty to five lesser charges, and a Delaware County judge handed him seven years of home detention.

This is not justice. This is an invitation.

Hoffman and his office treated a forced entry, a hand around a woman’s neck, a displayed firearm, and non-consensual sex as something that could be bargained down to a monitoring bracelet and a couch. Three other pending cases involving stalking, theft, and firearms were tossed in as part of the package. The result is exactly what the soft-on-crime crowd always delivers: the offender stays in the community, the victim is left to wonder who will protect her next time, and the prosecutor can claim he “resolved” the case.

So here’s a modest proposal. If Eric Hoffman is so confident that Resler poses no further danger, let the rapist live at the prosecutor’s house. Hoffman made the deal. He owns the outcome. Put Resler in a guest room, hand him the remote, and let the man who dropped the rape charge explain to his own family why a convicted batterer and former rape defendant is now part of the household. If the prosecutor trusts the arrangement for Muncie’s streets, he should trust it for his own driveway.

The comparison to Marion County’s Ryan Mears is not flattering, but it is earned. Hoffman, elected in a place that still expects prosecutors to treat violent crime as something more than a bargaining chip, has chosen the same path of least resistance. The voters of Delaware County will decide in 2026 whether they want a prosecutor who bargains away Level 1 felonies or one who treats them as the serious offenses they are.

Until then, the record is plain. A man charged with rape is on home detention because the Delaware County Prosecutor’s Office agreed to it. The community is stuck with the result. Hoffman can keep pretending this is normal, or he can house the man he helped keep free. The rest of us will keep locking our doors. This comes after Hoffman swept under the carpet the Muncie Police Department turned off their body camera to shoot a family dog 5 times, teamed up with a convicted felon to arrest a reporter for exposing Hoffman’s criminal behavior, Hoffman employing a guy who plead guilty for beating a woman and now allowing a rapist to live in our community.

One thing is for sure Hoffman doesn’t care about women. Is that because he had a messy divorce? Just because Hoffman had a messy divorce doesn’t give him the ability to prey on and suppress women’s rights. Hoffman deserves to be in State Prison for his criminal behavior suppressing women’s rights in our opinion. Hoffman is a weak subhuman who would off himself before he would go to Prison in the Delaware County Jail. He knows the inmates of Department of Corrections would have fun with him.

This article has opinions in it along with facts from Hoffman’s plea deals towards men who prey on women.