THE SOUTH BEND Following an investigation that began in October 2024, an Indiana State trooper is charged with fraud, theft, and obstruction of justice in St. Joseph County.
In addition to one allegation of fraud, a Class A misdemeanor, Andrew G. Kocsis, 39, is charged with two Level 6 felonies: theft and obstruction of justice.
Kocsis, Andrew
On Monday, June 16, the ISP issued a press release mentioning the charges. The case was assigned to Marion Special Prosecutor James D. Luttrull, whose charges were filed in the St. Joseph County Superior Court on June 16.
Kocsis has been a trooper since 2008, and his most recent employer at the agency’s general headquarters in Indianapolis, the release said.
He is on unpaid administrative leave until the situation is resolved and an internal inquiry is completed. July 8 is his first court date.
In October 2024, a Minnesota business owner claimed that Kocsis had paid him $809.95 for a UTV speaker bar, which Kocsis had received, according to an ISP affidavit.
The owner claimed that Kocsis thereafter sent him an email accusing him of being a scammer and alleging that he had only gotten landscaping pavers in the mail. According to reports, Kocsis submitted a number of pictures that demonstrated what he got.
Later, Kocsis called the owner and said he was a police officer and that since parcels go missing frequently, a police report would not yield any results. He submitted images of his driver’s license and ISP ID card to the owner.
The owner promised to pay Kocsis back for the purchase and claimed to support the police.
After seeing the photos Kocsis gave, he later believed he had been duped by Kocsis or someone posing as him.
The ISP opened an investigation once the owner verified to them that Kocsis was an officer.
The owner claimed to have packaged the sound bar himself when he spoke with the ISP. He claimed that in the pictures of the box Kocsis gave, there was what looked to be original tape and a label indicating that the box had never been opened and had been sealed. The owner added that any bricks placed inside the box would have broken it and that the wrapping appeared as he had placed it.
The images Kocsis submitted were viewed by the ISP captain conducting the investigation, and they seemed to support the owner’s claim.
Kocsis told the captain and another officer that the owner had mailed him a number of bricks. Kocsis attested that he had spoken with the proprietor and obtained a reimbursement.
Kocsis claimed that after receiving the parcel, he took some time to open it before realizing there were bricks inside. He said that when he received the package, it didn’t look damaged and that he didn’t take the packing off of it before taking pictures of its contents.
He told the officers that a strange duo who seemed like possible burglars had been in the area, as reported by his neighbor. Kocsis informed officers in the same interview that he used to work for UPS, the firm that delivered the UTV sound bar, and that the company had a lot of missing products.
A UPS security supervisor also met with the officers. She added that the box would have been harmed if there had been bricks inside.
She claimed that there was no evidence of box damage in the UPS driver’s picture of the delivery after he placed it on the porch.
In her three years as an advisor, the security supervisor said that there had only been one instance of staff theft, involving a cellphone.
She stated that the driver had been with UPS for 20 years without a complaint and that it was impossible for an employee to have changed the contents of the box and then left with the big sound bar without anybody noticing.
According to the security supervisor, before the pictures were shot, someone had to place the bricks in the box after it was delivered.
Kocsis confirmed that the box he got included bricks when the ISP captain spoke with him once again.
According to Kocsis, he had purchased a used sound bar from a man named Terry. He claimed that since it was a private sale and the serial number had been deleted, there was no information available about Terry. Additionally, Kocsis purchased a second sound bar from Crutchfield.
At Kocsis’s house, the ISP captain noticed both sound bars. The serial number label on the Crutchfield one was misaligned and appeared to have been reattached. The serial number on the other bar that Terry had sold was taken off.
A text exchange between Kocsis and his acquaintance asking the man to install a sound bar was discovered by an ISP forensic specialist. Kocsis allegedly claimed he didn’t receive a sound bar before that.
Later, the individual who claimed to have fitted the sound bar on the Kocsis Kawasaki Mule UTV met with the ISP captain. Speaking with the individual, the captain discovered that he installed the sound bar the day after Kocsis claimed to have gotten it. According to the man, he and Kocsis discussed his installing it soon after Kocsis received it. The captain concluded that this occurred soon after Kocsis claimed he had not received it and requested a refund from the vendor.
When he went to install it, the man informed the captain that the bar was not in its box; nevertheless, the mounting equipment was all in brand-new bags, so the captain assumed it was a brand-new sound bar. Additionally, the individual informed the captain that Kocsis had never mentioned receiving a delivery containing bricks.
After obtaining a warrant, the captain confiscated Kocsis’s two sound bars. Terry had given us the sound bar, but it was rendered absolutely unusable. The stickers for a number of its interior parts were removed. There were no numbers to show the source of the sound bar. The other sound bar was in perfect condition.
To find out if Kocsis had reported the sound bar theft, an officer spoke with a lieutenant from St. Joseph County. Kocsis had not reported the sound bar being stolen, the police discovered, but he had claimed to have many Kawasaki parts that he had not received from UPS, despite UPS claiming to have delivered them. After speaking with UPS and Kawasaki, Kocsis had stated that he had been instructed to submit a report.
The officer discovered that the purportedly missing components included a Mule UTV cover, floor mats, seat covers, and a horn kit. Kocsis texted his friend to ask for assistance mounting a horn on his Mule UTV, and the ISP captain recalled this.
An employee of Kawasaki informed an officer that Kocsis had received floor mats, seat coverings, a horn kit, and a Mule cover from UPS, and that Kocsis denied getting the items.
According to the employee, Kawasaki refused to give Kocsis his money back because UPS had a photo of the delivery. Additionally, Kocsis challenged the purchase with Capital One, his credit card provider.
Kocsis allegedly never received the parts, according to an officer who spoke with a Capital One investigator. The investigator showed Kocsis purchased the items for $668.48 and a photo of UPS delivering the items to Kocsis two days later.
The officer again spoke with Kocsis friend and looked at text messages between him and Kocsis about the matter. Kocsis had asked the friend to install a horn on his Mule UTV shortly after Kocsis would have received it. The friend described the horn as looking like one Kocsis had allegedly purchased from Kawasaki.
The officer served a search warrant for a horn kit, Mule cover, seat cover and floormat set. He found a horn, horn switch and Kawasaki seat cover.
The officer doesn t think the horn was a Kawasaki horn or the one Kocsis friend put on his UTV, but the switch appeared to come from Kawasaki.
