The St. Joseph County deputy prosecuting attorney who had an affair with a probate court magistrate quit immediately afterward in 2022, Prosecutor Ken Cotter announced today. He’s offering to help anyone who wants their case reviewed.
Cotter declined to give interviews but in a statement he released Tuesday, he said he only learned recently that his deputy prosecuting attorney for child support enforcement, Sarah Troyer, had a romance with Probate Court Magistrate Aric Rutkowski while she was regularly bringing cases before him. Cotter says Troyer quit at the end of 2022 without mentioning their affair, saying only that “she felt it was the best professional decision for her to resign.”
Probate Judge Loris Zappia on Monday announced that Rutkowski resigned May 29 of this year because he and Troyer were in the relationship for an 18-month span from June 2021 to December 2022. Zappia says non-custodial parents appeared before Rutkowski, with Troyer seeking to enforce child support orders, in 862 cases during that time.
Cotter says most of those hearings were uncontested but a few required Rutkowski to make decisions. In those instances, Cotter and Zappia are encouraging parents to contact an attorney. If any parents want the court to review Rutkowski’s decisions, Cotter says he will join in those requests.
