Sheriff Mark Frisbie, a rising Putnam County GOP star -- or so we thought -- resigned Friday. As is typical in small towns, I heard about it from a neighbor before it made the Banner-Graphic newspaper of Greencastle.

Frisbie may have gotten his tail caught in a federal investigation of missing funds that already brought down a former sheriff's department employee, George Alexander. Alexander is a good ol' boy who a year ago (spring 2007) was accused of scarfing up $45,000 in federal grant money and stashing it away.

Frisbie was accused of using departmental credit cards to pay for some frivolities, including trips, drinks and food. Former Banner-Graphic reporter Michael Zennie wrote about that investigation, but the stories seemed to go away when Zennie went back to school at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Now, according to WISH TV Channel 8's reporting Friday, Frisbie has gone and hired himself a real city slicker, Bob Hammerle. I can say that because I like Bob and if I had friends as sources/attorneys, he might be one. But I don't, and he is not.

Frisbie's resignation is compounded by the amount of good he did. He was elected sheriff twice; he brought the department on-line in terms of drug interdiction and meth investigations; he was buddies -- to a certain extent -- with Gov. Mitch Daniels.

Now the rising star has fallen. Anyone with more info, please send it this way. Hammerle said he'd have some answers in 10 days or so. Putnam can wait, but we'd rather not.

Here is the story from today's Banner-Graphic in Greencastle:

http://www.bannergraphic.com/