Porter County Courts
June 5, 2012 5:26PM
Portage
Woman left child with neighbor
A Portage woman faces up to three years in prison for allegedly abandoning a 6-year-old boy with a neighbor she was only acquainted with.
Shawn Praschak, 37, is charged with Class D felony neglect of a dependent and allegedly left the child with the neighbor at 3 a.m. in May when she left with a man.
The neighbor turned the child over to an uncle when the mother didn’t return, and when Praschak called police later, she would only say she was in Gary, not giving a specific place, court records state.
Police reported she didn’t ask about the child’s welfare.
Porter County
NIPSCO worker sues over fall
A Northern Indiana Public Service worker is suing the Porter Cove Homeowners Association for injuries he sustained when he fell into an apparently unused utility hole.
Bruce Jeffrey was reading the meter for a lighted sign on Jan. 18 when he walked across the snowdrift-covered hole.
An unsecured plastic cover over the 24-inch diameter hole had flipped under the drift, and Jeffrey fell in.
The suit, filed May 24 in Porter County Superior Court, states that the homeowners’ association had done nothing to fill the hole after it became unused years before and that Jeffrey is unable to work and has had metal rods surgically implanted in his back.
His attorney, Jeffrey Clymer, declined to comment on pending litigation, and Porter Cove Homeowners Association President Russell Dahl said the matter was handed to the association’s insurer.
Man accused of robbing safe
A Porter Township man is accused of breaking into a family business and robbing the safe of $12,200.
Kolten S. Westfall, 18, has been charged in Porter County Superior Court with committing Class D felony theft at Action Welding and Machinery Services, and faces six months to three years in prison.
Court documents state he burglarized the safe sometime before the business opened on May 19.
