A former Indiana lawmaker, Sean Eberhart, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison by a federal judge on Wednesday. This punishment came as a result of Eberhart pleading guilty to conspiring to commit fraud in November. Along with the prison sentence, Eberhart agreed to pay $60,000 in restitution, equivalent to his annual pay as a legislator. The former state Rep., who represented central Indiana’s House District 57 for 16 years, left office in November 2022. Eberhart, a Republican, was accused of pushing a bill that favored a casino company, Spectacle Entertainment, in exchange for promises of future employment.

Court documents revealed that Spectacle Entertainment sought to buy two Lake Michigan casinos in Gary, Indiana, in 2018. They planned to relocate the casinos to downtown Gary and Vigo County. The bill approving this move was passed by the Legislature in 2019. Eberhart, who sat on the House Committee on Public Policy overseeing casinos and gambling, was accused of leveraging his position to advocate for the relocation and secure favorable terms for the company, including tax incentives, in exchange for a potential job with a salary of at least $350,000 per year.

Spectacle Entertainment has been under scrutiny from federal investigations lately. In 2022, casino executive John Keeler and former Indiana state Sen. Brent Waltz were sentenced for involvement in illegally channeling gambling money into Waltz’s unsuccessful 2016 congressional campaign. Keeler, a former Republican legislator, was sentenced to two months in federal prison and fined $55,000. Following their indictments in 2020, the Indiana Gaming Commission compelled Spectacle officials to relinquish their ownership stakes in casino projects in Gary and Terre Haute.