Northwest Herald snubs FEN lawsuit against Nygren

Earlier this week Pete Gonigam, publisher of FirstElectricNewspaper.com, filed a civil action against the McHenry County Sheriff's Department.

I think the Northwest Herald still has a reporter at the courthouse. Maybe in these lean times it doesn't.

Or maybe it doesn't want to run any news story that is not complimentary of Sheriff Nygren.

Gonigam's lawsuit is about the failure of the Sheriff's Department to comply with an order from the Public Access Bureau of the Illinois Attorney General's office to release its investigative report by Nygren of Zinke for divulging confidential information about a DEA investigation to one of Nygren's political supporters and a member of the MCSD Merit Commission - and a huge financial supporter to Nygren over the past years.

The excuses given by the Sheriff's Department don't hold water. The sheriff got Donald Leist involved as his Legal Affairs Officer. Who even knew that the sheriff had created such a position that. He hired Leist to replace his previous EEO officer. He didn't need a lawyer for that civilian position; he didn't even need the position. But he picked up Leist, who was leaving the State's Attorney Office for the new job.

Leist is a common-law employee of the MCSD, not a lawyer for the Sheriff's Department.

A directive from the Public Access Bureau (PAB) doesn't have any teeth in it, so a public body" (in this case, the McHenry County Sheriff's Department) can just sit back and thumb its nose at the PAB. I suspect the Sheriff thought Pete Gonigam wouldn't sue him for the investigate report, but that's exactly what Pete is doing.

Is there even a report? And who investigated the allegations that Zinke had acted improperly? If MCSD had an Internal Affairs Division, it would have been the investigating authority. But did Nygren have his civilian employee dig in all the dirt? Is there anybody in McHenry County who doesn't see what's wrong with this picture?

The Northwest Herald is keeping its head down in the foxhole on this one. Why?

Earlier this week a reader told me that he thought the Northwest Herald ought to hire me as its investigative reporter. I'd be its first. Or first, in a long time.