INDIANAPOLIS -- A judge Friday appointed a special prosecutor and an assistant special prosecutor to investigate the race for Marion County sheriff.

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Lawrence Mayor Thomas Schneider's campaign for sheriff has been under scrutiny since an RTV6 camera captured Lawrence city employees loading city vehicles with campaign signs on the afternoon of Oct. 11.

State law prohibits public workers from engaging in private work while they are on the clock for their public jobs. Schneider (pictured, left), a Republican, says the employees took themselves off the clock when they worked for his campaign.

Marion Superior Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson appointed John Whiteleather Jr., who is a Democrat and Whitley County's prosecutor, to lead the investigation. Republican John Branham, who is Huntington County's prosecutor, will assist Whiteleather, RTV6 reported.

Whiteleather and Branham will be allowed to scrutinize other campaigns. County Republicans, responding to the scrutiny Schneider's campaign received, say people campaigning for Democratic sheriff candidate Frank Anderson have misused public resources.

"The order, as I have drafted it, would authorize (the special prosecutors) to investigate Mayor Schneider ... but also any other public employee that may have violated Indiana law," Magnus-Stinson said Friday.

Marion County Prosecutor Scott Newman had requested a special-prosecutor investigation, saying it was the only way to make sure the public found out what happened.

Newman excused himself from the case because he is a Republican and has endorsed Schneider's campaign, RTV6's Jack Rinehart reported.

Schneider told RTV6 Thursday that the Lawrence parks employees deducted an hour from their timecards when they helped his campaign Oct. 11.

The employees' supervisor, Eric Martin, said he was unaware of any timecard deductions, but he said the campaign activity was done after work.

Schneider said no parks employee violated law or city policy. He said city policy gives workers unlimited use of take-home city vehicles.

"They know what their status is with those vehicles and how they can be used," Schneider said. "But there's nothing ... that says they can't haul a political sign in the back of it.

"The thing is, we haven't done anything lawfully wrong here. But we have done something here that does not and will not look good to the public."

Schneider said he was apologetic because of the way the Oct. 11 political work may have been perceived.