{"id":169692,"date":"2023-09-01T03:50:50","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T08:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=169692"},"modified":"2023-09-01T03:50:51","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T08:50:51","slug":"former-area-mayor-appears-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2023\/09\/01\/former-area-mayor-appears-in-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Former area mayor appears in court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>VW independent staff<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>LIMA &#8212; The former mayor of Spencerville is facing up to 90 days in jail and a sex offender classification after pleading guilty to a voyeurism charge on Thursday. He also faces a verdict on a felony charge after a brief bench trial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"211\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Phillip-Briggs-2-1-2023.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-162682\"\/><figcaption>Phillip Briggs<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>In exchange for the guilty plea by Phillip Briggs, 45, four felony counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity oriented material were dismissed by the Allen County Prosecutor\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A judge will review evidence on a sixth charge, including video recordings and screenshots and will issue a verdict at a later date. Formal sentencing on the misdemeanor charge has not been set. In addition to possible jail time, Briggs is facing a fine up to $750 and a Tier I sex offender designation, which requires an offender to register with law enforcement annually for 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Briggs was arrested January 31, after detectives interviewed two teenage girls who claimed he had secretly recorded them in various stages of undress. A search warrant was executed at his home and a laptop was seized by deputies. He resigned three days after his arrest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VW independent staff LIMA &#8212; The former mayor of Spencerville is facing up to 90 days in jail and a sex offender classification after pleading guilty to a voyeurism charge on Thursday. He also faces a verdict on a felony charge after a brief bench trial. In exchange for the guilty plea by Phillip Briggs, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 10:57:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169693,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169692\/revisions\/169693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}