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SOUTH BEND, Ind. — In 1983, current GOP Candidate for St. Joseph County Probate Court, Loris Zappia, hit and killed a man with his car. The victim, 55-year-old Basil Thomas, a Brother of Holy Cross, was riding his bicycle near the Notre Dame Campus when Zappia hit him with his vehicle on Juniper Road near the intersection of Pendle. It was June 4th, 1983. Thomas died from his injuries three days later, on June 7th.
For years, Zappia has claimed he was a minor during the accident. Sometimes he has told people he was 16-years-old. Other times he has told folks he was 17, as is the case in a recent opinion piece he published in the South Bend Tribune.
ZAPPIA LIED
It turns out, Zappia was actually a legal adult at the time of the crash — he had turned 18-years-old months earlier. This convenient lie may seem minor to some, however, for any journalist or opposing political researcher, it’s fairly evident it was meant to prevent folks from looking into the incident. You see, as a minor, all of the records involving Zappia would not be available to the public. In fact, REAL News Michiana has known about this incident for years, but never made any public records request because it was assumed the requests would be denied due to Zappia’s age.
However, when Zappia refused to name the victim in his case, RNM became suspicious of the story Zappia had been presenting. So, RNM spent hours combing through archived newspaper articles from 1983. Eventually we found a small article from June 6th, naming the victim and Zappia. To our surprise, Zappia was 18-years-old.
A GRAND JURY
Details from 1983 news reports are limited. They simply describe the crash and, later, a grand jury convening regarding the case. Zappia has been open about the fact that the case went to a grand jury, but suspiciously gave very few details on that as well. You see, a grand jury isn’t just called for no reason at all — there has to be evidence of a crime. Zappia has never answered the question as to why a grand jury was necessary, what allegations was he facing, and what facts or evidence the police uncovered where criminal charges were a possibility.
It’s also well known that grand juries are frequently used to get people out of crimes. For instance, prosecutors have historically used a grand jury to get police officers off the hook for alleged crimes. The prosecutor, instead of just charging, takes it to a grand jury to see if members of the public believe the facts uncovered by the police meet the elements of a crime. However, this process gives the prosecutor a lot of power creating a narrative about what happened behind closed doors — as no victims, defense or witnesses are required to be presented. EVERYTHING is done in a secretive and sealed manner by only the prosecutor, making it very easy for the prosecutor to push the grand jury in one direction or another. This also allows the prosecutor to wash their hands of any charging decision one way or another.
A famous local case of potential grand jury malfeasance involved the death of a 22-year-old woman, Erica Flores, who was killed by a speeding SBPD Officer in 2018. According to an article in the South Bend Tribune at the time, “Presenting the case to a grand jury, attorney Thomas Dixon said, was the ‘preordained way to not get a charge against the officer.’”
So — why would the prosecutor in 1983 potentially be helping an 18-year-old Loris Zappia?
As it turns out, Zappia had a wealthy and influential family. Plus, according to sources, the lawyer he hired was the prosecutor’s brother-in-law.
According to multiple sources, Zappia hired Bill Stanley to represent him at the time. Stanley was widely known as the premier DUI lawyer in the region. Stanley was also close friends with the St. Joseph County Prosecutor, Mike Barnes — as well as related to him by marriage. Barnes also had close ties to the Zappia family. RNM had requested all of Barnes’ campaign finance records to see how much money was donated to his campaigns from the Zappia family and Bill Stanley, however, due to their age, those documents appear to have been destroyed and are no longer available.
Since RNM has discovered Zappia was in fact an adult at the time of the crash, we have put in public records requests with the South Bend Police Department to get all of the incident reports and the completed investigation. We are currently waiting for those requests to be fulfilled. We plan to publish all of the documents in their entirety once received.
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