Indiana’s Broken Scales: Attorney General Rokita’s Disciplinary Case Exposes Systemic Flaws, as Former Lawyer Fights for Justice

August 16, 2025

Do you know what a General Flynn-style perjury trap is? It’s when a prosecutor, armed with only power and malice, coerces a false confession under threat of arrest or ruin, not to seek truth but to destroy. It is an illegal and unethical practice.

Courts, like the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Chen (933 F.2d 793, 1991), have warned that such traps—where the “principal purpose” is to extract perjury—violate due process. The Second Circuit, in United States v. Regan, noted it’s improper to call a witness solely to entrap them for perjury when no legitimate investigation exists.

Yet, in Indiana, this tactic seems to thrive under the Indiana Supreme Court’s (SCOIN) exclusive authority over attorney discipline, a power it mislabels as “original jurisdiction.”

Now, this flawed system is under scrutiny in the high-profile case of Attorney General Theodore E. Rokita (In the Matter of Theodore Edward Rokita, Case No. 25S-DI-29), where irregularities pile up like storm debris, and a former Hoosier lawyer, Doug A. Bernacchi, fights to intervene, crying favoritism and injustice by having been put in perjury trap by the state and not given the same rights now being afforded the Attorney General in his disciplinary case.

On August 15, 2025, two filings landed in SCOIN Clerk’s desk but not on the the docket—or should they both have been docketed timely? One was Rokita’s “Answer” to a disciplinary complaint, filed by his defense team: James Joseph Ammeen, Paul O. Mullin, Eric Ryan Shouse, H. Christopher Bartolomucci, and Gene C. Schaerr.

This document, the Answer is not accessible thought, making it shrouded in secrecy, when it should be accessible to the public on MyCase.in.gov, a troubling omission for a case involving Indiana’s top law enforcement officer. Such irregularities undermine confidence.

The second was Bernacchi’s Motion to invervene with is proposed Verified Motion to Stay Proceedings as Illegal and Contrary to Codified Single-Member Hearing Officer Rule, or Alternatively, Motion to Reconsider Order Contrary to Express Law, Common Law, and the Indiana Constitution.

But Bernacchi’s filing of the same day, likely even earlier in the day on Friday, August 15, 2025, does not appear filed or shown on Mycase.in.com.  This is preposterous.

After being reached by telephone, Bernacchi presented evidence from FileTime.com confirming its submission (Submission ID: 35666552, August 15, 2025, 2:57 PM EDT), Bernacchi’s motion is absent from the public docket. This is preposterous. Liberal intervention is permitted in Indiana courts, so why is his filing hidden? The Hoosier Enquirer is preparing an Access to Public Records Act (APRA) request under Indiana Code §§ 5-14-3-1 et seq. to demand answers. If the Clerk of the Courts fails to act, a lawsuit against their official bond may follow.

No one answered the telephone at the Supreme Court or the Clerk of the Supreme Court Offices on Friday. Of course, it is August.

A System Rigged Against the Vulnerable

Bernacchi’s motion, provided to the Hoosier Enquirer and other media, is a heart-wrenching plea from a man whose life was shattered by SCOIN’s disciplinary machine. Born on a Northern Indiana produce farm, Bernacchi worked from age 8 to 17, served as an altar boy, and graduated from LaPorte High School. He earned a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown, an M.B.A. from Notre Dame’s ethics-focused program, and a J.D. from Loyola Chicago. Admitted to the Illinois bar in 1990 and Indiana’s on October 15, 1990, at Indianapolis’ Scottish Rite Cathedral, he built a 27-year career as an arbitrator for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a court-appointed attorney for State Farm policyholders, and pro bono Town Attorney for Michiana Shores, saving it from insolvency. He taught business ethics at Indiana Tech, interned for Senator Richard Lugar, and held high-level government clearances. Yet, in 2015, as he campaigned for a St. Joseph County judgeship, the Disciplinary Commission targeted him with a three-count Verified Complaint (VC), triggered by a client he never met, Ms. Sharon Brown Perry.

Bernacchi’s family—his wife, an Elkhart Central High School honors graduate, and their four children, all seventh-generation graduates of that inner-city school—lived a model Hoosier life in Granger, Indiana. But the Commission’s actions forced them into exile in Darien, Connecticut, stripping Bernacchi of his livelihood and reputation. “If a kid does everything right, proceeds to do so as an adult, is ethical, responsible, and honest to a fault, and still gets canceled with no evidence of intent to violate professional rules, then the Indiana legal ethics system is broken,” Bernacchi writes in his motion. “Those in charge are not leaders and should not be entrusted with exclusive authority.”

A Perjury Trap and a Coerced Confession

Bernacchi’s case mirrors the “Gen. Flynn-style perjury trap.” He asks should the Indiana Supreme Court have allowed traps, trickery and prosecutorial misconduct, to be used in prior attorney disciplinary cases to convict any targeted Indiana Attorney of Misconduct, or deny the affected lawyer a fair fact-finding hearing before now a three-member panel?

That is the issue at bar now by the recent filing a motion to intervene in a high provide Indiana Attorney Disciplinary Case being adjudicated before Indiana’s highest court, now an exclusive ethics tribunal for the state’s Attorney General in In the Matter of Theodore Edward Rokita.

On August 15, two filings were made and only is docket but without a time stamp?  Why are these DI case so full of irregularities.  The first filing was Motion to Intervene.  But it fails to appear online at the time publishing of this news story.  The second is a private “Answer” to the complaint, completely inaccessible for public viewing.  The Answer, not available, today to read online, sadly, was filed by Attorneys James Joseph Ammeen,  Paul O. Mullin, Eric Ryan Shouse, H. Christopher Bartolocmucci, and Attorney Gene C. Schaerr, who make up the AG’s defense team.

Courts (e.g., United States v. Chen, United States v. Simone) have held that perjury traps can violate due process when the government’s “principal purpose” is to extract perjury rather than seek relevant testimony.

The Ninth Circuit (in United States v. Chen, 933 F.2d 793, 1991) defined a perjury trap as arising when "the government calls a witness before a grand jury for the primary purpose of obtaining testimony from him in order to prosecute him later for perjury."

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals even described it in dicta as “improper call a witness solely for the purpose of obtaining testimony from him in order to prosecute him for perjury.” In United States v. Regan, emphasized the government conducted a legitimate investigation and didn't call the witness solely to entrap him for perjury.

But In the Matter of Doug Bernacchi’s prosecutor, Aaron Johnson, did not do a legitimate investigation and even sent home and dismissed a key witness, Mario Sims, rather than taking his deposition under oath.  But instead, he proceeds to hold a perjury-trap gun to Bernacchi’s head to coerce a false confession or be arrested with a badge clad, gun holding Indiana state policeman standing ready and making the treat himself to Bernacchi.

Bernacchi’s filings provide to HE and other media outlets by courtesy copy at the time of publish still do not appear on official docket.  HE will monitor this case and the clerk of the courts actions, if it is not accepted we may and should file a lawsuit against the Clerk’s official bond.  The Clerk of the Courts in Indiana is bonded and if breaches it duty a lawsuit may be proper.  Regardless, at the time print we are preparing HE’s APRA request under the Access to Public Records Act, found in Indiana Code §§ 5-14-3-1 et seq.

Is that what we pay police officers to do, frame good lawyers?  Apparently, the Supreme Court of Indiana condones it?  We will see their response to Bernacchi’s recent motion to intervene in Rokita.

So, while the Second Circuit has not formally adopted the perjury‐trap doctrine (and in Regan expressly declined to recognize it after finding the standard if there is a legitimate investigation…), other circuits—including the Ninth—have cautioned that it is improper ‘to call a witness before a grand jury for the primary purpose of obtaining testimony … in order to prosecute him later for perjury.’” (quoting United States v. Chen, 933 F.2d 793, 796 (9th Cir. 1991)).

In December 2015, Commission counsel Aaron Johnson demanded Bernacchi sign an agreed discipline before an 11 a.m. meeting, denying him time to seek counsel. Johnson misrepresented it as a minor reprimand, but used the signature to imply guilt, a tactic Bernacchi calls “wire fraud” and “lawfare.” Johnson advised paying Ms. Perry $800 she never paid as a retainer, then denied it. Certified records proved Perry lost her home over a year before Bernacchi’s representation, yet her perjured testimony was used to destroy him. At a December 19, 2017, sanction-only hearing before Hearing Officer Sheila Moss, Bernacchi was denied witnesses, even to rebut Perry’s lies. Moss suggested a six-month suspension with reinstatement, but SCOIN, without witnessing the hearing, doubled it to a year without automatic reinstatement, relying on innuendo.

Reciprocal actions in Illinois and Utah compounded the injustice. Illinois called the case “chicken shit” but pursued it after Bernacchi opened a Chicago office. Utah, where he resigned his license in 2005, acted without proper service. A Virginia court described Indiana’s process as “all the grace of a drive-by shooting,” refusing to punish Bernacchi there. He paid $260,000 in legal fees, never receiving a merits hearing. His 2019 reinstatement motion, filed by Attorney Thomas F. Godfrey, III, remains ignored.

Rokita’s Case: Favoritism Exposed

Rokita’s case, In the Matter of Theodore Edward Rokita (25S-DI-29), stems from comments made in 2022 about Dr. Caitlin Bernard, who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim. In 2023, SCOIN reprimanded Rokita for violating Professional Conduct Rules 3.6(a) and 4.4(a), accepting a conditional agreement where he admitted misconduct. But hours later, Rokita issued a press release denying he violated confidentiality or laws, claiming he accepted the reprimand to save taxpayer money. The Commission filed a second complaint on January 31, 2025, alleging Rokita lied to SCOIN, a charge Bernacchi sees as another perjury trap.

SCOIN’s July 18, 2025, Order denied Rokita’s motion to dismiss but appointed a three-member panel—Judges Cale Bradford, Nancy Vaidik, and William Hussmann Jr.—violating Admission and Discipline Rule 23, Section 13(a), which mandates a single, non-state-employed hearing officer. This panel, drawn from state-employed appellate judges holding lucrative positions, contravenes Indiana Constitution Article 9, Section 2, prohibiting multiple paid state roles. Bernacchi argues this favoritism—allowing Rokita a motion to dismiss and a three-judge panel, denied to sole practitioners like himself—violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the U.S. and Indiana Constitutions.

Bernacchi did not lie under oath.  He signed the plea agreement but was told he would get virtually no punishment for the sole purpose of putting him a perjury trap. It was dirty trick.  And when that plea bargained punishment, a short suspension, did not occur like in a normal criminal case, the defendant’s not guilty plea is reinstated as matter of law and as constitutional under the Code of Criminal Procedure and case law. 

However, when an ethics case respondent is not ordered the plea offered to entice a signature under oath on admission required by the prosecutor, the Code of Civil Procedure does not apply, only Rule 23, which the court clearly varied from in its recent order in In the Matter of Theodore Edward Rokita, which prompted Bernacchi to file his motions now with the Indiana Supreme Court crying favoritism. Source, order url: https://public.courts.in.gov/Decisions/api/Document/Opinion?Id=_WPgGqrvAju3zEE9srq-K5culqUXrNry6YLhxSgyKLKYSoUaX05WLl6OI5Fed08U0

A Call for Reform

Bernacchi, once a friend of the AG, who supported Rokita’s many political campaigns, sees his case as proof of a “protection racket” for powerful bar members. He cites Andrew Straw’s RFI against former AG Curtis Hill, dismissed with little scrutiny, and his own case, where Johnson suborned perjury and ignored evidence. “Free speech is what SCOIN seeks to curb,” Bernacchi writes, “not public harm.” He questions why attorneys like John Tompkins, who falsified answers, and Johnson, who coerced confessions, remain in good standing, while he, a dedicated lawyer, was canceled.

The Hoosier Enquirer demands answers: Why is Bernacchi’s motion hidden? Why does SCOIN bend rules for Rokita but not others? Is Chief Justice Loretta Rush the head of the snake? The public sees a system where good lawyers are fleeced by ethics defense attorneys and crushed by a Commission that targets the vulnerable.

(See https://www.facebook.com/supportdougslaw/videos/1915825418443989/). Bernacchi's Doug's Law proposal seeks non-partisan reform to “unsuck” the practice of law. Until SCOIN acts—by staying Rokita’s case, correcting Bernacchi’s, or addressing his reinstatement—the erosion of trust in Indiana’s judiciary will deepen. God knows, and so does the public.

Contact the Hoosier Enquirer at editor@hoosierenquirer.com for updates on this case. We welcome readers to republish our content following our guidelines at hoosierenquirer.com/republish. This article is based on a review of Bernacchi's pleadings filed with the Supreme Court Clerk on 8/15/2025