Incumbent Senator In Indiana Caught Shoplifting

State Sen. Ron Alting has not been charged. He has also stopped pretending nothing happened.

The Lafayette Journal & Courier, picked up by the Northwest Indiana Times, reported Wednesday that the Lafayette Republican is accused of shoplifting at the east-side Walmart on Commerce Drive on September 22 and at the Monticello Walmart on October 1. A source familiar with both incidents put his name on them. Lafayette police have not. What they have confirmed is narrower, and it is enough to matter.

Sgt. Nathan Stoneking said an officer was sent to the Commerce Drive store at 4:28 p.m. on September 22 for a shoplifting report. Loss prevention told police a man and a woman were stopped briefly by store security, then left in a green pickup before officers arrived. Police say a theft occurred and that two persons of interest have been identified. No arrest. No summons. Names not released. Monticello police, asked separately, reported no pending charges. Elkhart County Prosecutor Vicki Becker has been named special prosecutor on the Tippecanoe case. She said she will review the file for possible charges and that none have been filed.

Alting’s statement, issued the same day, does not name a store. It does not deny a store.

“I have been experiencing concerning changes in my judgment and cognitive functioning,” he said. “Those changes have become serious enough that I have sought medical help and am now undergoing further evaluation, testing and treatment. During this time, I did things that were wrong and completely out of character for me. I take responsibility for my actions and apologize to my family, my constituents and the store employees involved.”

He is stepping back from actively campaigning. He is not stepping off the ballot.

The office, and the timing

Alting has held Senate District 22, most of Tippecanoe County, since 1998. This would be an eighth term. He won a contested May primary against Richard Bagsby, 59.1 percent to 40.9, after Bagsby argued he was not conservative enough. President Trump endorsed him on the strength of a redistricting vote. Early voting for the November 3 general election was already open when the Journal & Courier story landed. His opponent is Democrat Natasha Baker, a teacher who lives near Battle Ground.

For years he chaired the Senate Public Policy Committee, the room that handles alcohol, gambling, and the other regulated trades the state licenses. He has sat on Elections and Judiciary. Base pay for an Indiana senator is $33,032, plus per diem. The value of whatever left the two Walmarts has not been published. The apology to “the store employees involved” is the part of the statement that does not require a medical chart to read.

That is the irony, and it is a plain one. A man who has written the rules for other people’s licenses is asking the public to treat two alleged thefts as a health event, while his name remains the Republican line on a ballot people are already marking. Cognitive trouble is a real thing at his age. It is also not a filing that closes a police report. Becker still has the file. The stores still have the tape, or they do not. Voters in District 22 have a name and a statement, and not much else, with the election less than a month out.

The rest of the file, this year

Alting is not the only Indiana official in a public-integrity case. He is the one whose case is still an accusation plus an apology.

In Brown County, former surveyor David K. Harden, 70, of Nashville, was charged in September 2025 with corrupt business influence, fraud, conflict of interest, and official misconduct. State police and the State Board of Accounts say he billed the county $71,600 across three invoices for section-corner work, 2022 through 2024, and deposited the checks into Bennett & Associates, a company he owned, without the disclosure the law requires. He admitted the invoices and the deposits in an interview. That case is a charge, not a rumor. The Republic’s account is the cleanest local read.

Dubois County Sheriff Tom Kleinhelter was charged with false informing and official misconduct. Clinton County Sheriff Richard Kelly and jail matron Ashley Kelly were charged with fraud, theft, and official misconduct tied to disability payments and, in a separate civil action, commissary money. The Attorney General has sued to recover roughly $329,000 after an audit found commissary funds went to a company the couple operated. Ashley Kelly is accused of drawing more than $205,000 in disability pay from 2021 to 2026. WRTV’s rundown has the charge lists.

In September the Inspector General referred former INDOT employee Cordell Ross to the Lake County prosecutor: theft and official misconduct over 752 fuel purchases, 13,122 gallons, $40,573.64. The inspector general’s release is the document. Two BMV employees were charged in August with bribery and official misconduct.