IL for www.theindianalawyer.com

A man serving an 80-year prison sentence for the 2015 rape and murder of an Indiana University student has pleaded guilty to the rape of an IU law student three years earlier.

Daniel Messel, 52, pleaded guilty Tuesday to battery resulting in serious injury in the September 2012 attack on the then-22-year-old woman at Bloomington’s Lake Griffy.

A Monroe County judge sentenced Messel to eight years on the battery charge and seven years for being a habitual offender. Messel will serve those 15 years concurrently with the 80-year sentence for his conviction in the April 2015 slaying of 22-year-old Hannah Wilson of Fishers. Messel had been charged with Class B felony rape and criminal deviate conduct, as well as lesser felony counts of battery with injury, criminal confinement and theft in the 2012 attack.

Wilson had just finished final exams for her undergraduate degree when she went out celebrating with friends in 2015. Her friends decided she was too intoxicated to go to the bar and put her in a taxi to go home. Surveillance video showed Messel’s car followed the taxi.

Wilson’s body was found the next day in a parking lot in Brown County. An autopsy showed she died after being struck multiple times with a blunt object in the head.

Messel’s cellphone was found at the scene. He was later arrested while carrying a garbage bag with clothing that contained Wilson’s DNA. Her hair, blood and DNA were found on the inside and outside of Messel’s car.

After the victim of the 2012 attack heard details of the Wilson case, she contacted authorities again in 2016, noting the “eerily similar” nature of the assault against her. Authorities soon confirmed Messel as a suspect.

Messel assaulted the victim in the 2012 attack just before she started her first year at Indiana University Maurer School of Law. Like Wilson, the law student was assaulted after a night of drinking in Bloomington clubs just off campus, according to police narratives in both cases. As in the Wilson case, Messel allegedly secreted the law student into his vehicle, drove her to an isolated, wooded location, forced her from the car and sexually assaulted her.

She fought off the attacker after he allegedly forced her to perform oral sex, the probable cause affidavit says. The attacker then allegedly punched her in the face with such force that it knocked out a contact lens and forced her to spit out blood. He then got in his car and sped away with her purse, phone and other possessions.

The victim went to the closest house, police were dispatched, and she was taken to a hospital where a rape kit examination was administered. Investigators obtained the attacker’s genetic material that was collected from under her fingernails when she scratched him.

After the law student contacted authorities in 2016 upon hearing of Messel’s conviction in the Wilson case, the genetic evidence from her 2012 assault was tested and matched the genetic profile for Messel in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, police said. However, Messel’s DNA should have been in the database at that time, given his prior felony convictions. The affidavit drafted by Indiana University Police says in 2012, “There was not a sufficient quantity of DNA at the time for comparison in the FBI’s program used for matching DNA profiles, CODIS.”

When Messel was convicted of Wilson’s murder in 2015, he also was adjudicated as a habitual offender in that case. His lengthy criminal record includes convictions of multiple felony battery charges dating back to 1995.

The victim of Messel’s 2012 attack testified Tuesday that she’s satisfied with the sentence because Messel will spend the rest of his life in prison.

DAVE STAFFORD for www.theindianalawwyer.com

A Greenwood attorney who neglected clients and made false claims of his legal experience and expertise has been suspended from the practice of law for at least 18 months.

The suspension was announced Wednesday in a published Indiana Supreme Court decision, In the Matter of Joseph Patrick Hudspeth, 41S00-1612-DI-659. Hudspeth’s suspension is without automatic reinstatement.

The sources of disciplinary charges against Hudspeth date back many years. Clients 1 hired him in 2009 to pursue disability and/or damages for their daughter, who was injured in a golf cart accident during a high school event. Hudspeth sued a school and a golf club involved in the matter, but the golf club filed for bankruptcy, during which the suit was stayed.

In 2012, the golf club was discharged from bankruptcy, and after Hudspeth failed to respond to the school’s discovery requests and motions to compel and deem admissions made, the school moved to dismiss the case. Hudspeth also failed to appear at a hearing on the motion, which was reset.

“Meanwhile, Clients 1 lost all contact with (Hudspeth) and were unable to reach him, and they were unaware their case was facing dismissal,” the Supreme Court wrote in a per curiam opinion. “(Hudspeth) did not appear at the reset dismissal hearing, and the court granted the School’s motion to dismiss. (Hudspeth) did not notify Clients 1 of the dismissal.

“During these disciplinary proceedings (Hudspeth) produced a letter addressed to Clients 1 and dated one day after the trial court’s dismissal of the case, in which (Hudspeth) deceptively wrote that the case had been dismissed because Clients 1 could not establish 100% liability against School. The hearing officer found that this letter was not sent to Clients 1 but instead was created by (Hudspeth) during the disciplinary process,” the court wrote.

In a separate matter, Hudspeth neglected Client 2’s disability claim in federal court that he filed in 2010. The case was dismissed in 2012, but Hudspeth didn’t inform the client, instead telling her more than a year later the case was still pending and would take months to get a result. Client 2 learned the case had been dismissed by calling the court and asking about it.

Aside from neglecting client cases and making false statements to clients about the status of their cases, the commission also found that on two websites, Hudspeth “falsely claimed that ‘he had 35 years of experience in the [social security] industry,’ falsely used the plural ‘attorneys’ to describe the members of his firm even though (he) was a solo practitioner, and falsely claimed to be a specialist in areas of the law in which he held no certification or specialty (and, in most instances, had little or no experience).” Hudspeth was admitted to practice in 2008 and face five disciplinary cases filed between 2014 and 2016, all of which are now concluded.

The court found Hudspeth violated eight Rules of Professional Conduct and rejected his request that any suspension be issued with automatic reinstatement.

His “pattern of dishonesty, which (he) employed largely to mask his own professional shortcomings, compels us to conclude that a significant period of suspension is warranted and that (Hudspeth) must be required to undergo the reinstatement process before resuming the practice of law,” the court wrote.

Costs of the proceeding are assessed against Hudspeth.