Indian River County’s Director of Planning and Development Services, Christopher Balter, resigned August 7—just three days after his arrest on charges of Delivery of a Controlled Substance and Forgery. The resignation came amid disturbing allegations that Balter admitted in a recorded phone call to giving his grandfather, a hospice patient, unprescribed medication in what he described as an act to “help him out.”
Balter, 35, was a high-profile figure in local government, having served as Urban Planner for the City of Palm Bay for nearly a decade before assuming his leadership role in Indian River County. Court records detail that Balter was arrested after a friend came forward to Palm Bay Police with allegations of what appeared to be an assisted suicide.
Allegations of Administering Ambien
According to a sworn affidavit, on February 1, Balter’s 90-year-old grandfather, Gilbert Balter, died at his Palm Bay home while under hospice care for diastolic heart failure. That same evening, Balter allegedly told longtime friend Kristen Rutherford over the phone that he had “killed” his grandfather by giving him Ambien—prescribed to Balter, but not to the patient. In a controlled call later recorded by police, Balter reportedly acknowledged giving Gilbert the medication, stating, “People do that all the time to help people out. That is what hospice is. They load them full of pain meds and ease their way out.”