The criminal case against Gary G. Greiner, the Terre Haute funeral director whose state licenses were revoked Aug. 6, will not reach a courtroom Tuesday after all. The initial hearing set for Sept. 1 at 9:00 a.m. in Vigo Superior Court 1 was canceled on the court's own calendar Aug. 31, with the reason listed only as "Other," according to the case docket. Judge Charles D. Johnson signed an order the same day setting the case for a further-proceedings hearing Nov. 19, a final pretrial conference Jan. 14, and a jury trial Jan. 25, 2027.
The 37 counts rest on more than $552,000 in funeral payments collected from families in advance, by the account of Vigo County Prosecutor Terry Modesitt, who announced the charges Aug. 20. The charging record, Cause No. 84D01-2608-F5-003955, enumerates one count of corrupt business influence, a Level 5 felony; 21 counts of theft, each a Level 6 felony; and 15 counts of fraud on a financial institution, each a Level 5 felony. The docket entries do not name the institution. Obitley covered the filing on Aug. 22 in "greiner-funeral-home-37-charges" and the board's denial of a successor's branch license on Aug. 24 in "indiana-board-denies-greiner-branch-license."
Five days that erased Tuesday
The docket shows how fast the schedule moved. On Aug. 27, Johnson set the initial hearing and ordered the defendant to appear. On Aug. 28, defense counsel Michael Thomas Ellis filed a waiver of formal arraignment, reading of charges and reading of rights. On Aug. 31, Johnson signed the trial-setting order, with copies to the prosecution, Vigo County Adult Probation and Ellis. The initial hearing was canceled the same day. The entry gives the reason as "Other" and nothing more.
The record does not say whether the arraignment waiver had anything to do with the cancellation. Waivers of that kind spare a defendant the public reading of all 37 counts; whether the court treated the waiver as making a courtroom appearance unnecessary is a question the docket does not answer.
The phone fight and the body attachment
The canceled hearing was the only date on the calendar aimed at bringing anyone into a courtroom. The case's other live disputes sit in motions without hearing dates.
The docket already shows the defense fighting the prosecution's request for a search warrant covering Greiner's cellphone. On Aug. 21, one day after the case opened, the record logs three events in a single day: a body attachment issued and served, the warrant request, and a defense motion to release the phone and object to the search.
A body attachment is a court order telling law enforcement to pick a person up and bring them physically before the judge. It works like an arrest warrant, but it is issued in civil matters, typically when someone has failed to show up for a court date or has not complied with a court order. The docket entry is one line and does not say who this one targeted, so who it was issued against, and whether it connects to the phone fight, cannot be reported from the record alone.
Nothing on the new calendar resolves either dispute yet.
The oldest counts date to July 2014
The alleged offense dates run from July 1, 2014 through April 28, 2025. That is nearly eleven years of alleged conduct, charged in a case filed in 2026, so the two oldest counts were filed roughly twelve years after the conduct they describe. Two counts carry that July 2014 date. After them, the record lists no offense dates again until May 2020, then a steady sequence across 2020 through 2025. The two newest counts carry the April 28, 2025 date, about sixteen months before the case was filed.
Why the calendar gap is the whole sentencing story
How far apart the offense dates sit turns out to be the biggest single variable in how much prison time Indiana law allows, because the state cannot simply add up 37 sentences. When prison terms run back to back, Indiana caps the total, and the cap depends on how a court groups the conduct into what the law calls an "episode of criminal conduct."
An episode, under IC 35-50-1-2(b), means offenses "closely related in time, place and circumstance." Those are the statute's words, checked Aug. 31 against the current published text. Under 35-50-1-2(d), one episode whose most serious crime is a Level 5 felony carries a seven-year cap on back-to-back time; a group whose worst crime is a Level 6 caps at four years. Greiner's most serious counts are Level 5.
If the judge decides the eleven years charged here is one episode, meaning one funeral home, one alleged scheme, sales stretching across that whole span, then even 37 convictions carry a maximum of seven years served back to back. If the court instead rules that the 2014 conduct happened too long before the rest to be part of the same episode, a second seven-year block becomes possible: seven years for the 2014 episode plus seven years for everything after, served one after the other, fourteen years in all. The judge is never required to impose that. The second block is only a ceiling that becomes available; no sentence follows from it automatically. That call belongs to Judge Johnson, if the case gets that far.
What prison time would cost taxpayers
The Indiana Department of Correction puts the average cost of housing one inmate at $52.61 a day, which comes to $19,203 a year, in its published figures.
On that number, the advisory sentence on the lead Level 5 count, three years under IC 35-50-2-6, would cost taxpayers about $57,600. An advisory sentence is the starting point Indiana law sets for a judge; it is not a requirement. The seven-year single-episode cap would cost about $134,000. If the 2014 counts are found to be a separate episode, the illustrative ceiling roughly doubles to about $269,000 across fourteen years. That last number depends on a question no court has answered: whether the 2014 conduct is legally separate from the rest.
Restitution is excluded from this math because it is the families' money. So are prosecution, court-appointed defense, investigation, inmate transport and court operations; those costs are not priced in Obitley's worksheet. Detention cost is zero so far: the warrant set bond at $50,000 cash only on Aug. 20, a $49,950 cash bond was received by the clerk the same day, and Greiner has been out since.
No plea, conviction or sentence exists in this case. Every prison figure above answers one narrow question: how much time Indiana law makes available, and what that time would cost at the DOC's published daily rate. None of it is a prediction.
What families should know
The criminal case and the licensing case are separate tracks. The state board revoked Greiner's funeral director and establishment licenses by default order Aug. 6 and directed restitution for 142 consumers, up to $550,000 with interest, with collection authority given to the Indiana attorney general. The attorney general's separate administrative complaint counted at least 147 clients. The numbers do not match: the board's order covers 142 consumers, the attorney general's complaint counted at least 147, and no public document explains the five-consumer gap. It could be different counting methods, duplicate files, or clients one office found and the other missed. Until the counts are reconciled, the number of families with a documented claim depends on which document you read. Families with questions about the restitution order can raise them with the attorney general's office, which the board's minutes name as the collection authority.
What to watch
Nov. 19 is the next date the case touches a courtroom. Three questions sit between now and then: whether the cellphone motion gets a hearing, whether the additional counts Modesitt said were coming ever arrive (none appear on the docket so far), and whether the arraignment waiver ends up the closest thing this case has had to an appearance.
By the Numbers
{{TAKEAWAY}}- The cancellation's reason is "Other" and the record gives nothing more. The arraignment waiver filed three days earlier is the obvious question; the docket does not connect the two, and neither does this story.
- The next courtroom date is Nov. 19. A Jan. 25, 2027 jury trial is now on the calendar, set five months after the case was filed.
- The 2014 counts set up the case's central sentencing question, one episode or several. The answer moves the available prison time from about seven years toward fourteen, and taxpayer cost from about $134,000 toward $269,000.
- The prison figures describe ceilings the law makes available; they do not predict what will happen. Restitution stays out of the cost math because it belongs to the families.
*Sources: Indiana mycase docket, Cause No. 84D01-2608-F5-003955, Vigo Superior Court 1, retrieved Aug. 30, 2026 and again Sept. 1, 2026 (case summary archived as PDF; charge table identical in both pulls); Obitley taxpayer-cost worksheet for the case, corrected Sept. 1, 2026; Indiana Department of Correction average daily cost per inmate, faqs.in.gov, verified live Aug. 31, 2026; Indiana Code 35-50-1-2 and 35-50-2-6, verified against the current published text Aug. 31, 2026; Indiana State Board of Funeral and Cemetery Service minutes, Aug. 6, 2026; WTHI-TV and Terre Haute Tribune-Star reporting on the Aug. 20 charging announcement, with the 142-contract and $552,000 figures re-verified against live copies of the charging coverage Aug. 31, 2026 (WANE, AOL/WTWO); Obitley, "greiner-funeral-home-37-charges" (Aug. 22, 2026) and "indiana-board-denies-greiner-branch-license" (Aug. 24, 2026).*
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