Brittany Fortinberry Divorce Hands Custody to a Charged Ex

Brittany Fortinberry’s divorce is final, and the papers give her ex sole legal custody because she is still in jail. She is 33. The criminal case that put her there has not gone to a jury.

Nicholas Fortinberry gets the cars and the child for now. The same county file charged him too. The decree still sketches her return to legal custody after release, if no other limits land.

The Settlement Splits Two Cars From a Closet

The split closed Monday, August 24, 17 months after he filed in Morgan Superior Court. Court papers award Brittany her clothes, shoes, and makeup. Nicholas takes a 2022 Chrysler Pacifica and a Toyota 4Runner. They sold the house they shared and divided the money.

They married on November 11, 2020, and he listed February 21, 2025, as the date of separation, 4 years and 3 months later. He asked then for temporary custody of their child, then 4, and for the family home. The child was born before the wedding.

The Morgan County divorce case docket opened February 25, 2025, as case 55D02-2502-DC-000465, with Magistrate Terry E. Iacoli assigned. Clerks served her in the Morgan County Jail on February 26 and 27. A hearing on his motion for a provisional order was set for March 17, 2025, at 10:00 a.m.

THE PROPERTY AND CUSTODY SPLIT

The wardrobe line reads like leftover inventory. The custody lines are the actual transfer.

Who Holds Custody of Their Child?

Nicholas has sole legal custody while Brittany is in jail, and he has primary physical custody. Legal custody is the power to decide school, doctors, and the rest of a child’s life. Physical custody is where the child sleeps. The papers say she regains legal custody after she leaves jail, if no other restrictions are in place, and that her time with the child could grow by degrees once she is out.

That is a plan for a parent who is coming back. It is not a finding that she is innocent, and it is not a finding that she will serve a long sentence. Release is the trigger, not a verdict.

Nicholas Fortinberry Was Charged in the Same Probe

The public talk around this split treats him as a bystander dad pulling a child out of wreckage. Morgan County prosecutors charged him with intimidation and failure to report. He posted a $600 bond and was released. A later public disposition of that case has not surfaced.

Investigators told a judge he knew what his wife was doing and that he spoke to a 13-year-old who was at the house with another child.

If you don’t stop what you’re doing with my wife, then I’m going to kill you in front of your family. He then went on to say that do not continue to do what you’re doing with my wife until you turn 16.

Morgan County investigator, quoting Nicholas Fortinberry, in a court hearing transcript

Police talked with a parent on February 24, 2025. He filed for divorce the next day. The custody order that issued 17 months later does not, on the public papers, wait for that intimidation file to close. The child now lives with the parent who is out on bond, while the other parent remains in the jail where the divorce papers were served.

Forty-Seven Counts and Still No Trial

Brittany faces 47 counts, including 14 of sexual misconduct with a minor. Charging papers also include child molesting, dissemination of matter harmful to minors, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Some child molesting counts are Level 1 felonies, which in Indiana can bring up to 40 years each. She has pleaded not guilty by remaining in a pretrial posture; the state still has to prove the case.

Prosecutors say she sexually abused students she met at two Morgan County schools, some as young as 13, and that she gave some of them alcohol and psychedelic mushrooms. In one alleged incident, they say, several students wore masks from the Scream films during a group sexual encounter. Deputy prosecutor Michelle Armstrong has tried to keep the file on the victims and on a fair trial, not on the noise around it.

I realize that this case has received a great deal of publicity, but the focus is and will remain on the victims and the defendant’s right to a fair trial.

Michelle Armstrong, Morgan County deputy prosecutor, April 3, 2025 hearing

Kristina Korobov, a senior attorney with the Zero Abuse Project, put the same point in plainer words after the early hearings: there is nothing sexual about what happens to these kids. It is a violation, and it is exploitation. Male victims, she said, still come forward less often, which is one reason a DCS canvass of other families changed the size of the file.

THE CHARGE CALENDAR

1. August 22, 2024: Eminence Community Schools gets a report of inappropriate conduct toward two students, suspends her that night, and notifies the Indiana Department of Child Services and police.
2. August 23, 2024: Her resignation arrives by 9:45 a.m., ending a 44-day job that started July 10.
3. November 6, 2024: First charges are filed over sexual messages and videos sent to 17- and 18-year-old teacher assistants.
4. December 10, 2024: A grandmother tells police her grandson was abused around October 2023.
5. February 2025: Sexual misconduct charges are added; she is jailed. Nicholas files for divorce on February 25.
6. March 2025: Dozens of added counts follow a DCS canvass of other families. Nicholas is charged with intimidation and failure to report.
7. April 3, 2025: She is silent at a hearing. Prosecutors then name 8 victims across two cases. Bond rises to $150,000 surety plus $10,000 cash.
8. May 7, 2025: Her lawyers file a notice of mental disease or defect in Morgan Superior Court 3.
9. September 2025: Another teen comes forward. The count reaches 47.
10. August 24, 2026: The divorce decree is entered. She is still in jail. No public trial date is on the calendar.

On May 7, 2025, counsel told the court they had a good-faith belief she “likely suffers from a mental disease or defect, but lacks the expertise to proffer whether the defendant appreciated the wrongfulness of her conduct at the time of the offense.” She had already told police she struggles with borderline personality disorder. Two mental-health professionals were assigned to examine her. A June 25, 2025, trial setting slipped. By mid-May 2025, no new jury date had been set. It still has not been announced in public updates through the divorce.

Two Districts Put Their Answers in Writing

Metropolitan School District of Martinsville hired her as a substitute on October 24, 2023. She resigned January 9, 2024. The district said that resignation was not tied to sexual misconduct, that no sexual-misconduct report reached administrators or the anonymous tip line while she worked, and that a criminal background check showed no record. She held a state emergency license during that stretch.

Eminence later hired her as a middle-school math teacher. The district says it reported the August 22 complaint to DCS and to local police the same night, suspended her at once, and ended her employment when the resignation arrived the next morning. “The welfare and safety of our students is the top priority of the Eminence Community Schools,” the district said, and it pledged to keep working with police and the prosecutor.

Lawyers at Wagner Reese served an Indiana tort-claim notice on Martinsville schools seeking $700,000, accusing the district of negligent hiring and retention. They say she had already been pulled from Bell Intermediate Academy, in the same district, after complaints that included taking a student’s phone and messages that staff called too motherly, then obtained a license and was hired as a high-school substitute. Martinsville has said it is cooperating with law enforcement. The civil claim is a notice, not a judgment.

Anyone who thinks a child in Indiana is being abused or neglected can call the Indiana child abuse hotline at 1-800-800-5556, 24 hours a day. Reports can be anonymous. If a child is in immediate danger, 911 is the first call.

Indiana Law Weighs Jail Against Best Interests

Indiana does not strip a jailed parent of custody by default. Courts use the best interests of the child standard in IC 31-17-2-8, with no presumption for mother or father. Jail is one fact among others, including mental health, the child’s ties to each parent, and any pattern of family violence.

WHAT THE STATUTE TELLS A JUDGE TO WEIGH

• The child: Age, sex, and adjustment to home, school, and community.
• The parents: Each parent’s wishes, and the child’s wishes if the child is at least 14.
• The household: How the child gets along with parents, siblings, and anyone else who matters.
• Health and safety: Mental and physical health of everyone involved, plus any pattern of domestic or family violence.

Parenting time can be limited if contact would endanger a child’s physical health or impair emotional development. The Fortinberry papers do the practical thing first: sole legal custody to the parent who is not in a cell. They also refuse the other practical thing, a clean break. They keep Brittany on a delayed legal-custody clock that starts when the jail door opens.

In a case this size, some children also get a volunteer from an Indiana CASA volunteer program, a court-appointed special advocate who speaks for the child when no other adult is assigned to that job. The public divorce file does not say whether this child has one.

The Order Writes Her Back In After Jail

The return clause is the part the cars-and-clothes chatter skips. She does not need a not-guilty verdict to regain legal custody under this deal. She needs to leave jail, and she needs the absence of “other restrictions.” Those restrictions could come from the criminal court, from DCS, or from a later family-court filing. That is not spelled out in the public summary of the settlement.

If she is convicted on the Level 1 counts, release could be decades away, and “other restrictions” would be a live fight. If she is released on a later bond, or after a plea, or after a trial that does not go the state’s way, the custody clock in this decree starts without a new hearing built into the sentence. Nicholas would still hold primary physical custody unless and until that time is increased.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The decree: Divorce entered August 24, 2026, with sole legal custody to Nicholas while she is jailed.
• The return: Legal custody reverts to her after release if no other restrictions apply, and physical time may increase later.
• The criminal file: 47 counts remain open. She is in the Morgan County Jail. No public trial date is set.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Nicholas’s case: No public 2026 update shows whether the intimidation and failure-to-report charges were dropped, continued, or resolved.
• The mental-health track: Evaluators were appointed in 2025. Their findings have not been released.
• The child’s day to day: The papers do not describe schooling, visitation logistics, or whether a guardian ad litem was named.

The marriage is over. The parenting plan is not. It runs on a jail calendar that the criminal court has not yet finished writing.

She is still in that jail. The 47 counts are still on the docket. The child is with the parent who is not.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on public court papers, charging documents, and official statements, and it is for information only. It is not legal advice, is not a finding of guilt or innocence, and is not a recommendation about custody, visitation, or any other family-court step. Readers with questions about an Indiana custody or criminal matter should speak with a licensed Indiana attorney before acting. Charge counts, jail status, and custody terms reflect the public record as of September 2, 2026, and those facts can change with the next filing.