Jeffery Bornes
Introduction
Jeffery Alan Bornes Jr., 40, a Kokomo, Indiana police officer, was charged in October 2026 with official misconduct — a Level 6 felony — and two counts of fraud, Class A misdemeanors, after prosecutors say he used the department’s Flock Safety license plate reader system 18 times over ten days to search for a vehicle belonging to a private individual he knew. According to the Howard County Prosecutor’s Office, Bornes entered “welfare check” as the stated reason for each search, and none of the searches served a law enforcement purpose. He was taken into custody on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, with bond set at $12,000.
Background Information
Bornes served as an officer with the Kokomo Police Department in north-central Indiana. The searches at issue all targeted the same vehicle and all occurred between February 19 and February 28, according to the prosecutor’s office. The Howard County Prosecutor’s Office says “welfare check” was not a legitimate reason for the searches, and that the queries were made for a private individual Bornes knew rather than for any investigative purpose.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Charged, not convicted. Bornes faces one felony and two misdemeanor counts; the charges are accusations, he has not been tried, and he is presumed innocent.
The scheme surfaced in September 2026, when the Kokomo Police Department conducted a review of more than 9,000 Flock searches made by its officers — an audit-level sweep that flagged Bornes’s eighteen queries of the same vehicle in ten days, each logged under the same “welfare check” justification. The department referred the flagged searches to the prosecutor’s office for review, which produced the charges.
“License plate readers are a public investigative tool. Officers are given access to do police work, not to look up people in their personal lives,” Howard County Prosecutor Mark McCann said in the announcement. Bornes was taken into custody on October 7, 2026, and his bond was set at $12,000. An initial hearing was to be scheduled in Howard Superior Court 4. He remains on administrative leave from the Kokomo Police Department.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case is one of a rapid series of 2026 prosecutions in which police employees have been criminally charged for personal searches of license plate reader systems — from Itasca and West Chicago in suburban Chicago, to Georgetown and Kokomo in Indiana, to Sharonville, Ohio and Vidalia, Georgia — as departments turned on new Flock audit features and began reviewing their own officers’ query logs. The maximum exposure in Bornes’s case is comparatively modest: a Level 6 felony carries six months to two and a half years, and each Class A misdemeanor up to one year, plus fines.
Current Status
Bornes is charged, was in custody as of October 7, 2026, and remains on administrative leave pending the criminal case and any internal proceedings. No plea had been entered and no trial date set in the fetched coverage, and no public statement from Bornes or an attorney appears in the reporting. The administrative side of the case, including possible termination, remains with the department.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Eighteen queries of one person’s car is not an investigation; it is surveillance, and the department’s 9,000-search audit caught it. Whatever the criminal outcome, Bornes’s standing as an officer is broken: an administrative leave that began with a prosecutor referral rarely reverses, an official-misconduct conviction would end any Indiana law-enforcement career permanently, and the case hands Kokomo’s department both an internal scandal and a public example of why the audit now exists.
Sources
- WRTV, “Investigators: Kokomo officer charged for 18 searches of private vehicle in Flock system,” October 7, 2026 — source