GOSHEN, Ind. (WNDU) – Former Goshen Mayor Allan Kauffman was scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday, but it never happened.

According to our reporting partners at News from Goshenprosecutors backed out of a plea deal that called for Kauffman to admit guilt to one count of filing a fraudulent report.

The report is related to campaign finance in the November 2022 Goshen School Board election. Court documents allege that Kauffman facilitated a scheme to accept money from various people who wished to remain anonymous by funding a mass campaign mailer.

The documents say Kauffman took the money, put it in his personal account and wrote several large checks to various school board candidate campaigns, including one totaling more than $1,100.

Kauffman also allegedly made comments on social media that all candidates who received checks knew that the financial donations for the mailing actually came from multiple contributors.

The candidates themselves all filed financial reports naming Kauffman as the sole contributor to a significant donation – again, while being aware that others actually contributed to the mailing funds.

Kauffman is one of five people charged in the case. The others are Andrea Johnson, Mario Garber, Roger Nafziger and Jose Elizalde.

According to The Goshen News, Garber and Johnson were also in court Wednesday. Garber successfully requested that his offense be treated as a misdemeanor. He was given a 365-day suspended sentence and ordered to spend a weekend on a community work program.

As for Johnson, his trial date was rescheduled from December 2 to May 12, with a pretrial conference scheduled for April 30.

Both Nafziger and Elizalde were convicted in August. Nafziger received a one-year suspended sentence for failure to report, while Elizalde received a sentence similar to Garber.

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