Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Comment tomorrow on NWH Zinke case

You'll be able to comment online tomorrow after court time on the Northwest Herald's articles on the beans spilled by Undersheriff Andy Zinke in the DEA case.

About a year ago the Northwest Herald changed its policy to one that does not permit comments until a case actually made it into a courtroom.

In this case (12MR000459) Judge Thomas Meyer drew the short straw. He's probably wondering how he got so lucky.

He'll be clear to the parties that he is not adjudging Zinke's guilt. The matter before him is whether to appoint a Special Prosecutor.

Think back to when he was asked to appoint another Special Prosecutor. He was careful to draw the line in the sand and to say that his decision was not based on whether or not he thought Sheriff Nygren had broken the law. Judge Meyer ruled that he wasn't going to appoint a Special Prosecutor to go after Nygren. I understood him to say that he thought the State's Attorney could, but the State's Attorney decided he wasn't going to.

The Northwest Herald article in this morning's paper, written by Sara Sutschek with contributions from Kevin Craver, went soft on that case against Nygren. Some would say, "as expected". In referring to the request by Zane Seipler for a special prosecutor to investigate Nygren, the article said the legal action was because Nygren had used the same seven-point star (badge) in both official capacity as sheriff and in campaign literature.

Nice try, but that wasn't it. The Northwest Herald omitted the real basis for Zane's action, which was allegations of "theft, official misconduct and misappropriation of (County) funds."

2 comments:

Curious1 said...

Should prove to be an interesting one. Every time one of the knuckleheads on either side of local politics requests a special prosecutor they claim their mere request is some type of victory. Up to now everyone has prove to be nothing but a colossal waste of taxpayer money. I suspect this one will be a little different. In this one Koziol seems to by his own words to be making a confidential investigation very public. It will be very interesting to see why he feels so strongly that he and not the DEA should be deciding which way to take their investigation. He very well could be endangering lives and exposing a cooperating witness all because a higher ranking officer seems to have not followed his "orders" and he isn't willing to allow the DEA to manage their own case.

Ms.Hillary said...

There is No Cost To The County! Read the new law!
Do a google search for "55 ILCS 5/3-9008" Appointment of attorney to perform duties.

The new law is effective as of 08-17-2012. Part of this new law says that the court shall contact the public agencies, including but not limited to (list a few offices) "to determine a public prosecutor's availability to serve as a special prosecutor at no cost to the county."

NO COST TO THE COUNTY! New LAW! No need to continue to act as if this will cost the county more money. Those days are gone!

Even if it did cost money, how much is the judicial process worth?"