An Indianapolis cop who used department resources to harass his ex-wife relinquished his police powers under the terms of a recently-approved plea agreement.
Nicholas Cauley, 39, admitted to one charge of misdemeanor official misconduct on July 20. He was sentenced to just under a year of probation. He gave up his police certification last month, according to a list of decertified police officers maintained by the state’s Law Enforcement Training Board.
Cauley’s defense attorney did not immediately return IndyStar’s request for comment.
According to court documents, Cauley’s ex-wife complained to his employer on June 24, 2025, about seven months after their divorce had been finalized.
“I would simply like his attempts to contact me to stop,” she wrote in an email to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. “…If he had not been an officer I would have moved forward in some sort of legal way much sooner.”
There was a “discernable change” in Cauley’s behavior when the couple agreed to split in August 2024, his ex-wife said. He’d prevent her from accessing her own property unless she agreed to speak with him, she said. His behavior became “crueler and stranger” over time, she said, and she did all that she could to cut off contact.
But even after she blocked his personal email address and phone number from sending her messages, he began contacting her through other platforms, including his department-issued email account.
“…I am fully confident you will die alone because no one would want to deal with you,” Cauley wrote in one message from his personal account, according to a screenshot included in court documents.
He also used the dating app Hinge to message his ex-wife, according to police and court documents.
As officers began investigating Cauley’s actions, they learned that he’d driven his police car to his ex-wife’s workplace on March 24, 2025. He wasn’t responding to any calls at the location, internal records showed, and he left when dispatchers assigned him to respond to a nearby vandalism report.
Investigators believe Cauley left a letter on his ex-wife’s windshield that morning. One day later, Cauley looked up his ex-wife’s car registration information on his IMPD-issued laptop.
The results of that search showed his ex-wife’s new address, “which she believed he did not previously have,” court documents read.
In the months that followed, Cauley continued to contact his ex-wife and her coworkers, “[threatening] to show up uninvited to her work event(s),” detectives wrote.
Cauley was arrested on July 18, 2025. The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office charged him with one count of misdemeanor harassment, one count of felony official misconduct and one count of misdemeanor official misconduct. The harassment and felony misconduct charges were dropped in exchange for his plea to the lesser official misconduct charge.
IMPD put Cauley on administrative leave and collected his police gear after his arrest. At the time of publication, he remained on unpaid suspension pending termination.
“His status with the IMPD has been referred to the IMPD Merit Board for final decision,” a representative for the department’s public information office wrote.
Ryan Murphy is the communities reporter for IndyStar. She can be reached at rhmurphy@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IMPD officer gets probation, loses police powers over official misconduct
Reporting by Ryan Murphy, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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By Ryan Murphy, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
