On May 1, 2026, an Indiana courtroom confronted a troubling contradiction: a state police sergeant had denied receiving formal complaints while previously defending himself against a federal lawsuit alleging an unconstitutional cellphone search.
The contradiction emerged during criminal proceedings against Andrew Kosis in St. Joseph Superior Court. His defense attorney, Donald Schmidt, believed the officer’s earlier testimony raised serious questions about credibility and the prosecution’s obligation to disclose potentially favorable evidence.
Kosis had been charged on June 16, 2025, with felony theft, obstruction of justice, and misdemeanor fraud. The prosecution relied partly on evidence Indiana State Police Sergeant Jeremy Bryce discovered while examining Kosis’s cellphone.
Bryce had obtained the phone’s data pursuant to a valid search warrant. He maintained that while reviewing its contents, he inadvertently encountered incriminating information outside the warrant’s authorized scope, creating a dispute over its admissibility.
The defense sought to suppress that evidence, arguing that investigators had exceeded the warrant’s limitations. Bryce became a central prosecution witness because his explanation of how the information appeared was essential to the state’s position.
At a November 7, 2025, suppression hearing, prosecutors relied on Bryce’s account of an inadvertent discovery. Judge David Francisco subsequently denied the suppression motion on January 22, 2026, allowing the disputed evidence to remain admissible.
But the defense later identified something it believed should have been disclosed before the suppression hearing: a federal civil lawsuit accusing Bryce of conducting another unlawful cellphone search involving an incarcerated individual named Steven Heck.
The lawsuit had been filed on March 9, 2023. Bryce acknowledged receiving notice months later, reviewing the complaint, answering written questions under oath, and providing a sworn declaration during the litigation.
Yet during an October 27, 2025, deposition in Kosis’s criminal case, Bryce had answered that he received no formal complaints while serving as an Indiana State Police officer, despite his documented involvement in federal litigation.
Schmidt considered that answer misleading. He argued that the lawsuit was plainly a complaint against Bryce and that the officer’s familiarity with the proceedings made his failure to acknowledge it especially troubling.
On February 9, 2026, Kosis filed a motion seeking dismissal for alleged due process violations. The defense maintained that prosecutors had failed to disclose important evidence concerning the credibility of a critical law enforcement witness.
At the May 1 evidentiary hearing, Schmidt called Bryce to testify. His questions established that Bryce had been named in federal litigation, reviewed the allegations, and participated in preparing sworn responses to the complaint.
Bryce acknowledged those facts but disputed the suggestion that his earlier deposition answer had been deliberately false. He explained that he understood the word complaints to refer specifically to internal police disciplinary investigations.
According to Bryce, he had never been the subject of a formal internal affairs complaint or resulting disciplinary action. That interpretation, he maintained, explained why he had answered the deposition question as he did.
Special prosecutor James Luttrell explored that explanation during questioning. Bryce described the original question as broad and ambiguous, saying the context of the lengthy deposition had influenced how he interpreted its meaning.
The officer also noted that he had been asked immediately afterward whether he had received disciplinary action. Because he had not, he believed the conversation concerned internal investigations rather than lawsuits filed by private individuals.
Schmidt challenged that distinction during further questioning. He directed Bryce to the actual deposition language and asked him to identify where the original question specifically limited complaints to internal affairs investigations.
Bryce admitted that the question contained no such limitation. The admission strengthened the defense’s argument that the officer had supplied an inaccurate answer to a question directly relevant to assessing his professional history.
The attorney then established another important detail. Bryce had received and reviewed his deposition transcript, including the disputed answer, but had not submitted corrections despite having an opportunity to examine what he said.
For Schmidt, that failure made the contradiction more consequential. The defense believed Bryce had overlooked an opportunity to correct testimony that could have affected how the court evaluated his credibility during the suppression hearing.
The litigation history also contained a significant qualification. According to the defense’s account, the federal court had granted summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds without resolving the merits of the allegations against Bryce.
Bryce testified that he had not learned of that ruling when questioned in October 2025. His last remembered status inquiry had occurred months earlier, when he understood the federal case to remain pending.
The defense argued that the lawsuit and inaccurate deposition answer constituted impeachment evidence. Such information can help attorneys challenge whether a witness deserves to be believed, especially when the prosecution depends heavily on that witness.
Schmidt relied on Brady v. Maryland and Giglio v. United States, Supreme Court decisions establishing important disclosure obligations involving favorable evidence and information affecting the credibility of significant prosecution witnesses.
He also invoked the principle that prosecutors must account for favorable evidence known to law enforcement officers working on a case. The defense argued that personal ignorance of the lawsuit could not automatically excuse nondisclosure.
The attorney emphasized that Bryce was not an incidental witness. His testimony provided the explanation for how investigators encountered information beyond the cellphone warrant, making his credibility central to the earlier suppression decision.
Schmidt argued that knowledge of the federal lawsuit and deposition contradiction would have allowed him to conduct a substantially different cross-examination during the November hearing, when the judge was evaluating the officer’s account.
The defense also challenged the prosecution’s reliance on text messages exchanged between Bryce and Detective Hostetler. Although those communications supported the timeline, Schmidt argued they did not independently establish how Bryce first discovered the information.
That distinction mattered because the suppression dispute concerned whether the disputed evidence appeared inadvertently. Schmidt maintained that the officer’s explanation remained essential to determining whether the state’s legal justification could support admission.
Judge Francisco questioned the defense about when the information should have been disclosed. He also explored whether the alleged problem constituted a constitutional violation or a discovery dispute capable of being addressed through less severe remedies.
Schmidt insisted that disclosure should have occurred before the suppression hearing, if not before the deposition itself. He argued that withholding impeachment material had deprived the defense of a meaningful opportunity to challenge crucial testimony.
The requested remedy was severe. Schmidt urged the court to dismiss Kosis’s remaining criminal case, contending that the alleged disclosure failures had damaged the fairness of proceedings and warranted a substantial judicial response.
Alternatively, the defense requested that Bryce’s suppression hearing testimony be stricken. Schmidt argued that removing the testimony would undermine the state’s explanation for discovering information beyond the warrant and require reconsideration of the suppression ruling.
The dispute therefore became more than an argument about a single deposition answer. It concerned whether a criminal prosecution should continue after the defense learned information it considered essential to challenging a police witness.
Luttrell rejected the characterization of the lawsuit as meaningful impeachment evidence. He emphasized that the federal complaint contained unproven allegations and argued that Bryce’s explanation for the deposition answer was reasonable in context.
The prosecutor suggested that Judge Francisco could consider the newly presented information without dismissing the prosecution or removing the officer’s earlier testimony. He maintained that the judge could reassess its significance alongside the existing evidentiary record.
Luttrell also stated that he had not known about the federal lawsuit until Schmidt brought it to his attention in January. Judge Francisco clarified that nobody was accusing the special prosecutor personally of misconduct.
The judge faced competing arguments about fairness and proportionality. The defense demanded consequences for allegedly withheld impeachment evidence, while the prosecution argued that the new information did not justify dismantling an earlier evidentiary ruling.
Indiana’s criminal discovery rules provide mechanisms for addressing disclosure violations, including judicially determined sanctions. But the severity of any remedy depends on the circumstances, the significance of the information, and the prejudice involved.
After hearing both sides, Judge Francisco took the matter under advisement and indicated that a ruling would follow. The decision would determine whether the defense’s arguments justified dismissing the prosecution at that stage.
On June 1, 2026, Judge Francisco denied Kosis’s motion to dismiss. The source account does not describe every detail of the written ruling, but it confirms that the requested dismissal was not granted.
At the time the source episode was prepared, Kosis’s case remained pending, with a status hearing scheduled for June 12, 2026. The provided account does not establish a final verdict or subsequent resolution.
The hearing demonstrated why witness credibility and evidence disclosure remain essential components of criminal procedure. Even an apparently narrow disagreement about the meaning of a deposition question can generate substantial constitutional and evidentiary arguments.
It also revealed the difficult distinction between identifying potentially relevant undisclosed information and establishing a violation that justifies ending a prosecution. Those questions require separate assessments, even when the same witness is central to both.
For Kosis, the motion did not produce the dismissal his defense requested. For the court, the proceedings highlighted a continuing challenge: protecting defendants’ rights while determining remedies proportionate to the actual legal and evidentiary circumstances.
