FEN vs. MCSD

Something must have happened yesterday in the Circuit Court case of FirstElectricNewspaper.com (FEN) vs. Sheriff Nygren and Legal Affairs Officer Don Leist. No doubt that FEN and McHenry County Blog will be reporting details soon.

There was a hearing yesterday in Judge Meyer's courtroom. Online court records seem to indicate that Nygren and Leist are now Discharged Parties. Does this mean that Judge Meyer let them off the hook, individually, and now the only Defendant is the McHenry County Sheriff's Department? Of course, keep in mind who gives the orders at MCSD.

The online record still shows that the McHenry County State's Attorney is the lawyer for MCSD. Nygren and Leist had been arguing that Lou Bianchi wouldn't represent them (fairly?), because Bianchi is backing Bill Prim for Sheriff, not Nygren's hand-picked choice.

Judge Meyer had been forcing this case back into court with weekly hearings, putting a screeching halt to the normal 30-day continuances too often seen in Circuit Court cases.

But now the next court date is almost three weeks away - Tuesday, October 29.

When FEN's FOIA request was denied by the MCSD FOIA Officer, was it for solid legal reasons? The Attorney General's office didn't think so, when the Public Access Counselor told MCSD to release the 100-page "investigation" report that Leist wrote about Zinke's disclosure to Brian Goode about a confidential DEA investigation.

A couple of Zinke's loyal, lock-step followers still claim that Zinke was only "bringing in a witness", when he informed Goode that the DEA had identified a truck loaded with illegal drugs that was headed toward RITA Corporation. (Can you hear the boots stomping across the parade ground now?)

Many others believe that Zinke very improperly disclosed a confidential investigation and, by doing so, destroyed the investigation.

The public awaits the release of the 100-page report. Let's see what quality of "investigation" there really was. And how did Leist come up with the conclusion that Zinke didn't do anything wrong? If it's all clean and above-board, then Zinke ought to tell MCSD to release it.

On the other hand, ...

Note at 12:30PM - See this morning's article in FEN about this case.