FILED
Sep 22 2026, 9:25 am
CLERK
Indiana Supreme Court
Court of Appeals
and Tax Court
IN THE
Court of Appeals of Indiana
Tawk Hre,
Appellant-Defendant
v.
State of Indiana,
Appellee-Plaintiff
September 22, 2026
Court of Appeals Case No.
26A-CR-1089
Appeal from the Marion Superior Court
The Honorable Jose D. Salinas, Judge
The Honorable John Christ, Magistrate
Trial Court Cause No.
49D23-2504-CM-12775
Opinion by Judge Pyle
Judges Mathias and Weissmann concur.
Court of Appeals of Indiana Opinion 26A-CR-1089 September 22, 2026 Page 1 of 7
Pyle, Judge.
Statement of the Case
[1] Tawk Hre (“Hre”) appeals the trial court’s restitution order. He argues that the
trial court abused its discretion when it ordered him to pay Katie Mumford
(“Mumford”) restitution for her rental car expenses. Concluding that the trial
court abused its discretion, we reverse and remand with instructions for the trial
court to enter a corrected restitution order.
[2] We reverse and remand with instructions.
Issue
Whether the trial court abused its discretion when it ordered Hre
to pay Mumford restitution for her rental car expenses.
Facts
[3] In January 2025, forty-two-year-old Hre crashed his vehicle into and damaged
Mumford’s car (“the car”).1 A blood test revealed that Hre’s alcohol
concentration equivalent was .277 gram of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood.
In November 2025, he pleaded guilty, pursuant to a plea agreement, to Class A
misdemeanor operating a vehicle while intoxicated. Pursuant to the terms of
1
Hre also damaged Lynn Lewis’ (“Lewis”) property. He does not appeal the trial court’s restitution order
regarding Lewis.
Court of Appeals of Indiana Opinion 26A-CR-1089 September 22, 2026 Page 2 of 7
the plea agreement, the trial court sentenced Hre to 360 days with 356 days
suspended to probation and scheduled a restitution hearing for a later date.
[4] At the March 2026 restitution hearing, Mumford testified that she had been
without a vehicle while she had been waiting for the insurance company to pay
for damages to the car and that she had used Uber, Lyft, and a rental car for
transportation to work and other places. The trial court admitted into evidence
Mumford’s receipts from Uber and Lyft, which revealed that she had spent
$521.35 on those services from January 17, 2025 through January 30, 2025.
The trial court also admitted into evidence Mumford’s receipt from a rental car
company, which revealed that Mumford had spent $1,122.12 for a rental car
from January 30, 2025 through February 14, 2025. Mumford asked the trial
court to order Hre to pay her restitution for the Uber, Lyft, and rental car
expenses.
[5] Later in March 2026, the trial court entered an order requiring Hre to pay
Mumford $1,122.12 in restitution for the rental car expenses but declined to
require Hre to pay Mumford restitution for the Uber and Lyft expenses.
[6] Hre now appeals.
Decision
[7] Hre argues that the trial court abused its discretion when it ordered him to pay
Mumford restitution for her rental car expenses. We agree.
Court of Appeals of Indiana Opinion 26A-CR-1089 September 22, 2026 Page 3 of 7 [8] “Generally, an order of restitution is within the trial court’s discretion, and it
will be reversed only upon a finding of an abuse of that discretion.” Akehurst v.
State, 115 N.E.3d 515, 518 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018) (cleaned up). An abuse of
discretion occurs when the trial court misinterprets or misapplies the law. Id.
[9] INDIANA CODE § 35-50-5-3, (“the restitution statute”), provides, in relevant
part, as follows:
(a) . . . in addition to any sentence imposed under this article for
a felony or misdemeanor, the court may, . . . , order the person to
make restitution to the victim of the crime . . . . The court shall
base its restitution order upon a consideration of:
(1) property damages of the victim incurred as a result of
the crime, based on the actual cost of repair (or
replacement if repair is inappropriate);
(2) medical and hospital costs incurred by the victim
(before the date of the sentencing) as a result of the crime;
(3) the cost of medical laboratory tests to determine if the
crime has caused the victim to contract a disease or other
medical condition;
(4) earnings lost by the victim (before the date of
sentencing) as a result of the crime including earnings lost
while the victim was hospitalized or participating in the
investigation or trial of the crime; and
(5) funeral, burial, or cremation costs incurred by the
family or estate of a homicide victim as the result of the
crime.
“Because restitution is penal in nature, the statute providing for restitution must
be strictly construed against the State to avoid enlarging it beyond the fair
Court of Appeals of Indiana Opinion 26A-CR-1089 September 22, 2026 Page 4 of 7
meaning of the language used.” Morgan v. State, 49 N.E.3d 1091, 1094 (Ind. Ct.
App. 2016).
[10] Hre specifically argues that the trial court abused its discretion when it ordered
him to pay restitution to Mumford for her rental car expenses because the
restitution statute does not provide for payment of such expenses. In support of
his argument, Hre directs us to Person v. State, 93 N.E.3d 1126 (Ind. Ct. App.
2018). In the Person case, Person (“Person”) crashed his car into Rosa Bailey’s
(“Bailey”) car while fleeing from the police. Person subsequently pleaded guilty
to multiple offenses, and the trial court ordered him to pay restitution for,
among other things, the cost of Bailey’s use of public transportation for the days
that she did not have a car.
[11] Person appealed the restitution order and argued that the trial court had abused
its discretion when it had ordered him to pay for Bailey’s public transportation
expenses because the restitution statute did not provide for the payment of such
expenses. The State conceded that the trial court had abused its discretion.2
We agreed and reversed that portion of the trial court’s order that had ordered
Person to pay restitution for Bailey’s public transportation expenses. Person, 93
N.E.3d at 1127.
2
The State does not concede that the trial court abused its discretion in this case. Further, the State does not
attempt to distinguish the facts in Person from the facts in the case before us.
Court of Appeals of Indiana Opinion 26A-CR-1089 September 22, 2026 Page 5 of 7 [12] We agree with Hre that the facts before us are analogous to the facts in the
Person case. Specifically, the rental car expenses in this case are functionally
indistinguishable from the public transportation expenses in Person. In other
words, both the rental car expenses in this case and the public transportation
expenses in Person represent the cost of alternative transportation incurred by a
victim who lost the use of a vehicle as a result of the defendant’s criminal
conduct. In addition, neither expense falls within any of the restitution statute’s
five enumerated statutory categories. As a matter of public policy, it may make
sense to order reimbursement of rental car expenses under the facts of this case,
but it is a matter for our General Assembly to amend the statute governing what
constitutes restitution in criminal cases.
[13] Based on the foregoing, we conclude that the trial court abused its discretion
when it ordered Hre to pay Mumford restitution for her rental car expenses.
Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s restitution order and remand with
instructions for the trial court to enter a corrected restitution order. See Person,
93 N.E.3d at 1127. See also Springer v. State, 798 N.E.2d 431, 436 (Ind. 2003)
(affirming this Court’s determination that the trial court had abused its
discretion in requiring Springer to pay the cost of airline tickets for the victim’s
father because “the General Assembly has not authorized the trial court to
include this expense in its restitution order because none of the statutory
restitution categories includes any language that could be construed to
authorize it”), reh’g denied; Rich v. State, 890 N.E.2d 44, 53 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008)
(reversing trial court’s restitution order requiring Rich to pay for the cost of the
Court of Appeals of Indiana Opinion 26A-CR-1089 September 22, 2026 Page 6 of 7
victim’s security system because no portion of the restitution statute could be
construed to authorize such an order), trans. denied.3
[14] Reversed and remanded with instructions.
Mathias, J., and Weissmann, J., concur.
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT
Talisha R. Griffin
Timothy J. Burns
Marion County Public Defender Agency
Indianapolis, Indiana
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
Theodore E. Rokita
Attorney General of Indiana
Nicole D. Wiggins
Deputy Attorney General
Indianapolis, Indiana
3
We note that the State’s reliance on Akehurst, 115 N.E.3d at 515, is misplaced. In the Akehurst case,
Akehurst (“Akehurst”) crashed his vehicle into Jennifer Noble’s (“Noble”) van and fled from the scene. A
trial court subsequently convicted him of Class B misdemeanor leaving the scene of an accident. At
Akehurst’s sentencing hearing, Noble testified that although her insurance company had issued her a
payment for her totaled van, she still had $616.28 remaining on her loan for the van. Following the hearing,
the trial court ordered Akehurst to pay Noble restitution, including the $616.28 for the remainder of her loan.
On appeal, Akehurst argued that the trial court had abused its discretion when it had ordered him to pay
Noble restitution for the $616.28 remaining on her loan. We disagreed and explained that the restitution
statute allowed the trial court to order restitution for the actual cost to replace Noble’s van, which included
both the insurance payment and the $616.28 remaining on Noble’s loan. Akehurst, 115 N.E.3d at 519.
Accordingly, we concluded that the trial court had not abused its discretion when it had ordered Akehurst to
pay Noble restitution for the $616.28 remaining on her loan. Id. However, the facts in Akehurst are
distinguishable from the facts before us. Specifically, here, the trial court did not order Hre to pay Mumford
reimbursement for the actual cost to replace the car. Rather, the trial court ordered Hre to pay Mumford
reimbursement for her rental car expenses, which, as previously discussed, are not included in the restitution
statute.
Court of Appeals of Indiana Opinion 26A-CR-1089 September 22, 2026 Page 7 of 7