Jack Crawford, a former Lake County Prosecutor whose statewide political ambitions were derailed by scandal, died Wednesday.
He was 77. The cause was congestive heart failure, his wife Kim DeVane said by phone.
In later years, Crawford resurrected his legal career, as a dedicated Indianapolis defense attorney.
After a stint as a Hammond city judge, he was elected as Lake County Prosecutor from 1979 to 1989.
Crawford felt he ran on a promise to tackle crime, said Tom Vanes, who was a deputy prosecutor then. The emphasis shifted from plea deals to felony trials. In 1984, Vanes estimated Lake County had nearly 250 trials, compared to just over 50 last year.
In an early case Crawford personally prosecuted, jurors acquitted Leonard Smith by reason of insanity in November 1979 in the fatal shooting of California Angels baseball player Lyman Bostock in 1978 in Gary.
Later, Crawford lobbied a state lawmaker to make it much more difficult to raise an insanity defense.
Crawford pushed for the death penalty for Paula Cooper, who was 15 when she and a group of girls stabbed Ruth Pelke, 78, to death inside her Gary home in 1985 in a botched robbery.
Cooper became one of the youngest U.S. inmates on death row. Crawford rebuffed calls from Pope John Paul II for clemency.
Her case inspired Indiana lawmakers to raise the age at which someone can get the death penalty. At the time, it was 10 years old. Crawford lobbied state lawmakers to get Cooper grandfathered. The U.S. Supreme Court has since barred minors from death row.
Crawford thought it was a “vicious” crime and “never” expressed regrets to him on seeking the death penalty for her, said Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter.
The victim’s grandson Bill Pelke, who later advocated abolishing the death penalty and famously forgave Cooper, formed a sort of friendship before her 2015 suicide.
Carter acknowledged that the judge, James Kimbrough, who was anti-death penalty but sentenced Cooper to die, later expressed regrets to friends.
Crawford also “turned around” on the death penalty, but not in Cooper’s case, Carter said.
Crawford’s office investigated Jay Given’s May 1981 murder inside an East Chicago Elks Club, where more than 200 people were present. The prime suspect, East Chicago Police Deputy Chief John Cardona, was never charged, according to Post-Tribune archives.
As the years went on, Crawford looked for a way into political office.
“He was transparently ambitious,” Vanes said.
Crawford publicly touted several investigations into issues such as vote fraud and ghost payrolling, but most of these efforts ended with misdemeanor indictments of minor offenses, according to Post-Tribune archives. Successful federal probes into ticket-fixing in the county courts and bribes among county officials barely involved his office.
Crawford aimed to replace the late U.S. Rep. Adam Benjamin in Congress but he and incumbent Katie Hall lost to former Benjamin staffer Pete Visclosky in 1984.
In June 1989, he was appointed as Indiana’s first lottery director.
Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh forced Crawford out by December — just a few months into the job — after Mary Cartwright, his longtime secretary and office administrator, said they had a 9-year affair and accused him of sexual harassment.
Vanes and Carter, who also worked under him, said they were shocked.
Cartwright was Crawford’s “favorite” go-to person, Vanes said. Carter also said he didn’t know about their relationship.
Crawford was once a man he thought could run for president, Carter said.
The scandal “changed him,” DeVane, 70, his widow and longtime law partner, said. It effectively ended any political ambitions.
Both divorced with two kids each, they met in the mid-1990s when she helped a friend book his legal services. He was funny, engaging and charming.
It “took a lot of courage” to rebuild his career, she said. “It was all anyone was talking about.”
Multiple colleagues said that, professionally, it was Crawford’s second act in Indianapolis. Working as a lawyer gave him more privacy than as a politician, she said.
DeVane said she encouraged him from time to time to run for office but he rebuffed her, saying he didn’t want his sons to relive the scandal. It’s possible that the “fall from grace” made him more compassionate to the people he represented.
He loved being a lawyer and went into the courthouse until suffering a stroke in November, she said.
About six months ago, Carter said he and former county sheriff Roy Dominguez went to Indianapolis to meet with Crawford.
Crawford signed a copy of “Seventy Times Seven: A True Story of Murder and Mercy” for Carter by Alex Mar — a book on the Cooper case.
Dominguez said Crawford hired him in the prosecutor’s office fresh out of law school. He credited Crawford with ensuring the prosecutor’s office operated professionally and that people weren’t prosecuted for political reasons, Dominguez said.
The biggest dispute they faced and couldn’t reconcile, Dominguez said, is that Crawford was a Chicago Cubs fan and Dominguez has been a Chicago White Sox fan.
Former Lake County Democratic Party Chairman Jim Wieser said he and Crawford went to the same high school, though Crawford was a year younger. Growing up, Crawford’s family lived next door to Wieser’s aunt and uncle’s house. After college, law school and military service, they both returned to Northwest Indiana, Wieser said, and met for breakfast.
Wieser said he’ll never forget that they both decided to run for offices at the meeting — Crawford for Hammond City Judge and Wieser for Highland Town Council — which they both won.
“We kind of forged our alliance politically. That’s one of the first approaches to government that I had, was with Jack,” Wieser said.
In addition to DeVane, he is survived by two adult sons.
Post-Tribune reporter Alexandra Kukulka contributed.
