Hancock County Deputy James Heneghan Arrested — 6,196 Camera Searches, 441 Charges
James Heneghan wore a Hancock County badge for nine years. On Thursday, Indiana State Police used a warrant to take him to the same jail he once booked people into — and the number attached to his case is one most deputies never touch in an entire career: 6,196 license plate camera searches.
What the warrant says
Heneghan, 33, was booked into the Hancock County Jail on charges of intimidation, official misconduct and fraud. Court filings lay out the scale: investigators say he ran plates of a woman he knew through the Flock automatic license plate reader network 6,196 times — with additional queries on a second woman — and paired the surveillance with threatening messages that began surfacing in April 2026.
The full charge count reached 441: 221 felonies and 220 misdemeanors across seven cases, per Hancock County Prosecutor Brent Eaton. Investigators recovered evidence from a department-issued phone after executing a search warrant tied to the plate reader abuse.
The camera system he used on his own community
Flock cameras photograph every passing car and feed a searchable network that officers query for investigations. Court documents allege Heneghan treated that network as a personal tracking tool — searching for a woman described in filings as someone he knew, at a volume that department audit flags are designed to catch. The intimidating-messages allegations turned the digital trail into a criminal case.
He was placed on leave without pay when the allegations surfaced, per the sheriff’s office, and has been recommended for termination. The searches were discovered through an internal audit of the ALPR system logs.
Where the case stands — updated
Friday, Sept. 25: Heneghan appeared at his initial hearing in Hancock Superior Court 2 before Judge Dan Marshall and entered a not guilty plea. The judge set a cumulative $31,500 cash bond — and Heneghan was no longer listed on the county jail roster shortly after the hearing.
His next court appearance is set for Oct. 29. Seven separate cases are consolidated against him in that court; each misdemeanor and felony count maps to specific dated searches and messages, according to the prosecutor’s office.
This story is developing. We’ll update after the Oct. 29 hearing.
Watch the full breakdown
For more police accountability cases, check our Fired & Charged archive.
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