Could this be happening at 2200 N. Seminary in Woodstock? A reader made a comment to me today about a sinking ship in Woodstock, after reading Cal Skinner's stories about the Pavlin case and recent federal court ruling involving the McHenry County Sheriff's Department and some of its deputies.Read in today's McHenry County Blog about smear effoerts against Deputy Zane Seipler when he was running against Keith Nygren in the Republican Primary for Sheriff. A confidential Woodstock Police Department report was photocopied and widely disseminated within the offices of the McHenry County Sheriff's Department.
I heard about this right after it happened. I didn't report on it because it was an obvious smear tactic within the Republican campaign and the "powers" within the Sheriff's Department. I say this, because there is no deputy at the patrol level who would have dreamed up that one at the risk of his job.
Even then, someone knew who had obtained the Woodstock PD report. Woodstock PD would have had a record of who requested it and to whom it was given.
From there it would have been an easy matter to trace it through the photo-copying process (were County-owned and taxpayer-supported photocopiers used for campaign purposes?). Whoever was involved should have been criminally charged and prosecuted.
Did that happen? Of course not.
Read the explosive information on Cal's blog. The Woodstock PD denied FOIA requests for the report, although it did not name the two requestors. Those names should be readily available through a Freedom of Information Act request. I wonder if Cal has requested them.
Then the law firm of James G. Sotos filed a subpoena for the police record from the Woodstock PD and obtained it. Let's see now. Maybe it gets complicated here.
Q. Who does Jim Sotos represent?
A. Sheriff Keith Nygren, candidate in the Republican Primary for Sheriff of McHenry County.
The paper trail of the confidential police report shouldn't be hard to follow. Sotos knows to whom he gave it. That person knows what happened to it. Did "that person" give it to someone within the MCSD to photocopy and distribute within the Sheriff's Department?
Does the sun come up in the morning?
12 comments:
Kind of surprised you are now supporting a local police department keeping a report involving a local officer Confidential. Your track record would seem to support police agencies not being able to decide on their own to keep a report secret. Is it perhaps your politics are causing duplicity in your stance on secret documents?
I have to wonder if the same report was out there involving Nygren if you would be championing the need to keep it confidential.
"My" politics don't have a thing to do with it. If a department's policy is to keep certain types of reports confidential, and if they apply that policy evenly to all, then it's quite likely that you won't hear a peep out of me.
So it wouldn't matter whether the name on the report was Seipler or Nygren or YOUR name.
Did you read the article on Cal's blog? The report was given to Sotos in response to a subpoena, with the understanding that it was confidential.
Maybe he should have to raise his right hand in court and then state exactly what he did with it, and why. As should the person to whom he gave it.
You know - - "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."
So if the Sheriff said a report on a fellow officer was confidential and assured you it was consistent with other reports he deemed confidential you would be good with that? Really? Your OK if the Sheriff's department answers your Freedom of Information requests in the future with "that's confidential, just trust us"?
No, Curious1, I think you are mixing apples and oranges.
FOIA determines how a public body responds. Certain information can be withheld. Certain information can be redacted.
In this case, I think Attorney Sotos obtained an unredacted report. Then it moved from his office to someone at the Sheriff's Department. Then the UNREDACTED report was photocopied and distributed to deputies' mailboxes and the rollcall room, becoming public. THAT is what was improper, unethical, illegal.
Furthermore, the Woodstock PD was not investigating a report that involved one of its own officers. It involved a resident of the City of Woodstock.
That's different from the Sheriff's Dept. investigating one of its own employees and covering up what happened.
So you are OK with Police Departments marking reports as confidential and refusing to release without explanation? Just seems odd. Let's say if this exact same report involved Beth Bentley and her husband would you be championing keeping it from the public?
It's also possible that a Woodstock PD officer distributed a copy of it, that possibility shouldn't be overlooked.
Curious1, what I'm okay with is compliance with the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.
MBlue, certainly that's possible. According to the information on McHenry County Blog from the Federal Court, the WPD denied the FOIA request and, presumably, did not release the information except to the Sheriff's attorney, Jim Sotos.
That's not to say that someone WPD couldn't have provided a copy illegally to someone at MCSD.
I agree with MBlue. Something that occurred to me is that the Woodstock Police officers were able to get a copy, maybe one of the investiagting officers, and gave it to some deputy who then made many copies. They work there and would have access to the reports. There wouldn't be a record of any FOIA release since they just Bogart the copy because it's about another cop. Do you think Woodstock is going to admit to it?
Just as someone at WPD could have released it, Zane or his wife could have just as easily leaked a copy to tarnish MCSD and bolster his claims. Not accusing, just pointing out there are a lot of possibilities here, and frankly, I dont know of any reputable attorney that would risk his career and reputation over a "dirty trick"
MBlue, I'm not sure that a party in a report can even get a copy of a report, except by FOIA. And maybe not even then.
I agree with you that an attorney would very likely not risk his reputation and law license by leaking a report, especially in a case like this.
An attorney, though, might provide such a report to his client and then not be able to control what the client does with it.
Recall the Milliman deposition that was "leaked". In that instance, the attorney's client was the sheriff. The sheriff should not released the deposition to the undersheriff, because the U/S was not a party to the lawsuit. And he most emphatically should have not directed, authorized or allowed the undersheriff to pass it along to someone else.
The undersheriff should have understood that he was handling a privileged document and should have refused any direction to pass it along.
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