Beckwith office initiates ex parte communication with judge

Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith’s office attempted to intervene in a criminal case involving a years-old hit-and-run but the reason is a mystery so far.

The judge informed attorneys in the case and refused to consider the correspondence.

“The Court finds that the correspondence constitutes an ex parte communication concerning a pending matter and is not appropriate for consideration by the Court pursuant to the Indiana Trial Rules,” reads a Sept. 25 order from Franklin Circuit Judge Alex Dudley, who is the special judge in Jordan Wadle’s Fayette County criminal case.

Ex parte communications are unauthorized because they don’t involve all legal parties in the case.

Beckwith’s office has not responded to multiple emails and phone calls from the Indiana Capital Chronicle starting Sept. 29.

The court confirmed the communication was a phone call, so there is no record to review.

The judge’s order came on the same day as a family member filed a handwritten emergency transport petition so Wadle could attend his father’s funeral on Sept. 26. The judge stroke the request and didn’t rule on it.

Larry Dale Wadle died Sept. 21 in Connersville. His obituary said he was a longtime deputy with the sheriff’s department and was Fayette County Sheriff from 1989 to 1991. He also was a pastor at East Side Pentecostal Church.

Beckwith is also a pastor.

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According to an Indiana Supreme Court ruling, Wadle made unsolicited sexual advances toward a woman at a bar while drinking in 2015. There was an altercation in the parking lot with the woman’s husband and his brother, Charles Woodard.

“Although physically unprovoked by his interrogators, Wadle went on the offensive, punching and kicking. Wadle then returned to his car, suggesting an end to the fracas. But as Woodward retreated, Wadle’s car struck him from behind. Hell-bent on causing further injury, Wadle struck Woodward a second time, pinning him under a guardrail adjacent to the bar. Wadle then sped away, leaving his broken victim behind,” the ruling reads. “Police caught up with the suspected malefactor about an hour later just outside of town. Testing later revealed Wadle had a blood-alcohol level nearly twice the legal limit. Woodward ultimately survived the attack but spent nearly sixty days in the intensive care unit, having underwent surgery for a fractured skull and multiple broken ribs.”

A jury acquitted Wadle of aggravated battery in 2018 but found him guilty of four other charges: leaving the scene of an accident; operating a vehicle while intoxicated causing serious bodily injury; operating a vehicle while intoxicated endangering a person; and operating a vehicle while intoxicated with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more.

Wadle received a 16-year sentence, with two suspended to probation.

His attorneys later challenged whether his multiple convictions in the case violated the doctrine of double jeopardy. The Indiana Supreme Court in 2020 agreed, adopting a new framework for double jeopardy and vacating all but one of his convictions: the level 3 felony for leaving the scene of an accident.

“And because this conviction alone justifies the penalty imposed, we further instruct the trial court to leave in place his sixteen-year sentence with two years suspended to probation,” the justices wrote.

Wadle in Nov. 2025 sought a modification of his sentence so he could be released and undergo testing to potentially donate a kidney to his father, who had end-stage renal disease. Dudley denied that request after a hearing.

His Wadle’s estimated release is Nov. 15.