Pay and partnerships link Muncie cop, gun dealer

Jeff Burke is the owner of McGalliard Guns. Jess Neal is the Muncie Police Department’s professional standards officer and a veteran drug enforcement officer. The two are also frequent business partners and each has benefited from dealings with the Muncie Sanitary District, the city’s sewage-and-trash collection utility.

The Star Press reported in February that the sanitary district bought a former flea market building from Burke for $395,000, more than twice its sale price a month earlier. But the district also bought a building from Neal for three times what he paid for it and has paid the police investigator’s private temporary staffing company tens of thousands of dollars to provide Muncie City Hall data entry clerks as well as for “security” for empty houses owned by the sanitary district.

The sanitary district’s attorneys rent office space in a building co-owned by Jeff Burke, and Burke’s son, a local real estate broker, has been paid thousands of dollars to perform “appraisals” for the sanitary district.

And Neal’s employer, the Muncie Police Department, has done tens of thousands of dollars in business with Neal’s frequent business partner, Burke. When the department bought 110 Glock handguns in 2015, more than 100 officers who wanted to buy back their guns had to do so through Burke’s gun shop.

The Star Press reviewed hundreds of pages of documents and conducted numerous interviews over several weeks during a period when the FBI was actively investigating possible wrongdoing in Muncie city government. The newspaper’s investigation, covering money and relationships that might or might not be part of the FBI probe, showed at least the potential for conflicts of interest and ethical violations.

One city government veteran, who spoke to The Star Press after being guaranteed anonymity, said the FBI probe should broaden — if it hasn't already.