When charged with six counts of wire fraud and two counts of obstruction of justice, George Van Til, a long-serving Democratic politician in Indiana, declared his innocence and swore to fight.

When he got a chance, he rhapsodized about his career in public service – getting Dial-A-Ride here, helping save a fragment of prairie there, helping get the Main Square Gazebo right there in Main Square Park.

Screen grab from YouTube video, George Van Til in 2012 doing call-in show with “Jed in the Region.” SorryWatch has never been asked to be on the “Jed in the Region” show. I guess CRIME PAYS.

That was in May and June.

The charges against Van Til were about misusing his office as County Surveyor to get re-elected.

It couldn’t have been a complete surprise. I notice a video on YouTube captioned “George Van Til Freeloads gas on your TAX Dollars.” It says it shows Van Til gassing up his family car at a municipal pump. It was uploaded in 2008.

Screen grab from YouTube video titled “George Van Til Freeloads gas on your TAX Dollars.” Uploaded April 13, 2008. On the up side, it would appear that George Van Til pumps his own gas.

The indictment ignores the gas issue. It alleges Van Til had “county employees… perform personal services and political services so that Van Til would be re-elected as Lake County Surveyor.” It’s alleged that, fearful the feds might seize the hard drive from his computer, Van Til had a county employee take a hard drive out of a county computer and replace it (the county hard drive) with a new one, saying, “if by some chance down the line there’s ever a conversation, we never had these conversations.”

Another employee allegedly did no regular Surveyor’s Office tasks, confining himself to campaign work, including picking up Van Til’s tuxedo for a political fundraiser. (I like to think Van Til was wearing the tuxedo when he said “we never had these conversations,” but I’m a dreamer.)

Thought he was the bull goose.

Van Til denied the charges, said he’d continue to serve the public, and vowed he’d be vindicated by “the single most powerful resource that I have available: the truth.”

But this month Van Til changed his plea to guilty, announced his resignation, and released a statement of apology.

Van Til’s statement runs to two pages. I’m omitting early passages about I WAS A YOUNG IDEALIST, I SHOT TO THE TOP, I WORKED LIKE A DOG, and I WAS A FORCE FOR GOOD, I EVEN BUILT A GAZEBO.

…I have served with integrity, but I’ve made significant mistakes. …in the end, I let political campaigns intrude into the taxpayers work negatively and, ultimately, illegally. And for this, now, in declining health and regretting my errors, I need to leave.

…I stayed too long. I have been involved in more than 66 elections…. I did it honorably and honestly until, in the end, tired, sick and uncertain, I did it wrong.

I know that the people’s employees and the people’s resources are for the people’s business. And for decades that’s the way I rolled… Throughout four decades I’ve seen many abuses of political campaigning by public employees and, while it was always my goal and desire not to cross that line, towards the end I definitely did, and I think that much of this came from staying too long and taking things for granted.

…During the last third or so of my tenure, without really realizing it, I developed a sense that it was “my office” and “my staff”, and sometimes, especially in political situations, I approached it as such, on occasion asking employees to work for me, not the public…. as the years went by, as my enthusiasm for politics waned, as campaigns became more onerous, as my age climbed, as my health declined and as my comfort in the office increased, I gained a sense of entitlement that was wrong, and led to my wrong doing and my downfall.

…My mistakes have cost me the end of my career, my stature, my good reputation, my livelihood, my savings and the respect of many, in spite of whatever public good I’ve produced…. I am sorry and I apologize to those who’ve expressed faith in me for so long and to the taxpayers of Lake County that I let down.

I ask those who believed in me for forgiveness. I apologize to the public for not staying the course….

I’m calling that a good apology. It’s too long, and has too many plays for sympathy. But Van Til seems – at last – to have thought seriously about how he went wrong. He takes responsibility, and describes the process sadly and convincingly. He apologizes to the public and the taxpayers, not just to his supporters and family.

In exchange for the guilty plea, the U.S. District Court dropped the obstruction of justice charges. He’ll pay a not-yet-decided amount of restitution. And he could get up to 20 years.

A different and perhaps inferior gazebo. (Photo by Greg Hume.) Gazebo. Gazebo gazebo gazebo. Tuxedo tuxedo gazebo.

One Post-Tribune commenter on Van Til’s apology says the real problem goes back before Van Til started doing bad things himself – when he saw those abuses he mentions committed by other public employees, he had the obligation to report it. This I think is true. (Though not easy.) Silence contributed to an insidious, slow, lowering of standards.

Oh well. We’ll always have the gazebo.