There is no special prosecutor "game"

This morning's editorial in the Northwest Herald reads, "End special prosecutor game soon."

The special-prosecutor request isn't a "game".The County Board lost control of the checkbook, when it decided it had to pay the first bill submitted by Special Prosecutor Henry Tonigan in what turned out to be the failed prosecution of McHenry County State's Attorney Lou Bianchi. It was like handing a no-limit American Express card to Judge Graham. Why in the world the Board continued to approve a near-endless stream of billings, we'll probably never know.

And what about the still-unbilled time and expenses of Attorneys Tonigan and McQueen in that case? They should have billed monthly from the start. And now? They should bill the balance "Net 30" and then sue McHenry County for payment.

Read the "For the record" that accompanies today's editorial carefully. Here's what the paper published: "Taxpayers should not fund a special investigation into whether Sheriff Keith Nygren is appropriately using a star for political and official purposes."

The editors can relax. That's not what the request for a special prosecutor is for. Here is what it is for:

"... a special investigation into whether Sheriff Keith Nygren is inappropriately using a star for political and official purposes." And it's not even for that.

The Northwest Herald editors think that Sheriff Keith Nygren shouldn't be investigated by a Special Prosecutor. County Board Chairman Ken Koehler says it's "baloney." No, Ken; it's not. And the Northwest Herald editors are wrong, if they think that Seipler and Nygren are the only people who care about the petition for a special prosecutor.

Almost everyone has known from the start that the State's Attorney's office couldn't go after Nygren. Why not? Because they are the legal representative of the Sheriff. A 5th Grader could figure out that a lawyer can't defend a client in one case and turn around and sue him in another. Well, duh... It's called Conflict of Interest. That's probably covered in the first year of law school.

The editors have apparently not read the petition on which Judge Meyer is expected to rule soon. If they had, they would know it's not about a "seven-point" star (badge). It's about the mis-use of thousands of dollars of County money to plaster that star, which is Keith's own design resembling the official emblem of the office, all over County property.

Frankly, that petition ought to be amended yet again, this time to include the cases where the Sheriff (and the sheriff's department) have chosen the path of "administrative review" involving misdeeds of deputies, instead of criminal charges, and violations of the State's criminal code.