Letter disappears from MCSD

Many readers will remember hearing about (and perhaps reading) a January 4, 2011 from the FBI to Undersheriff Andy Zinke of the McHenry County Sheriff Department - the man who wants to be sheriff.

As the Number 2 in the sheriff's department, he'd be pretty good about documenting details; right? Pretty good about following protocol and procedures; right? Pretty good about rules and regulations; right? I mean, come on, Number 2 is almost at the top of the heap. You know the rules and you follow them.

So, on January 4, 2011, Special Agent in Charge Robert D. Grant wrote to Zinke. Actually, to me, it looks suspicious and unauthentic. The letter looks like it was prepared on an old Woodstock Typewriter Co. typewriter (no disrespect meant to the Woodstock Typewriter Co.). It's only saving grace from that era is the border-to-border justification, which didn't exist with old typewriters.

Agent Grant's letter begins, "We have had the opportunity to carefully review your December 3, 2010, letter requesting reports..."

There would be no reason for Agent Grant to lie in his letter, would there? So there must have been a December 3, 2010, letter from Zinke to the FBI. Grant's letter is signed by Assistant Special Agent in Charge Angela Byers, whose name and signature appear below the name of Robert D. Grant, Special Agent in Charge. So the case is that it is Agent Grant who is responding to Zinke.

Recently, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the McHenry County Sheriff's Department for Zinke's December 3, 2010, letter. The Department had provided me a copy of Agent Grant's letter, and there shouldn't have been any question about providing Zinke's letter.

But MCSD doesn't have it! The response to my FOIA request from MCSD was, "the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office is not in possession of a letter addressed to the FBI on or about December 3, 2010."

Impossible! How could it be gone? Didn't Zinke make a copy of it before or after he sent it? Was it sent by email? It's in his computer. Did he mail it? The document is in his computer.

But MCSD has told me twice that it doesn't have it.  If MCSD is not in possession of it, who has it? Did they give it to their lawyer, so that they wouldn't be in possession of it? Even so, a copy ought to be in Zinke's Word document file or in his Sent email.

Did he delete that letter? Isn't it illegal to delete information being used in a court case?

Does Zinke know why his letter is not in the possession of MCSD?

If you would like to read that January 4, 2011 letter from the FBI to Zinke, you can read it on McHenry County Blog. You can read it right here where it was published on the McHenry County Blog as recently as June 2, 2012..

A FOIA request with the FBI has been sent and is pending. Hopefully, their records management is superior to that at MCSD.