BELLEVILLE - Former St. Clair County Circuit Judge Ron Duebbert argues that he can prove his malicious prosecution claims if the defendants produce social media posts and data saved to cell phones and the cloud.
Duebbert filed an affidavit to support a motion for production of posts and data on Dec. 21, at the direction of Champaign County Circuit Judge Chad Beckett.
Beckett presides as outside judge over Duebbert’s claims against Belleville, policemen Timothy Crimm and Daniel Collins, lawyer Alex Enyart and former State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly, who currently serves as the Director of the Illinois State Police.
Duebbert holds them responsible for felony charges of sexual abuse that special prosecutors filed against him and then dismissed.
Duebbert wrote in his affidavit that Belleville pinned spurious allegations to the top of their Facebook page for months in a row.
He wrote that they denied doing this and refused to produce the statements, “even though I personally know them to have been in existence.”
He added that a Facebook page for the Belleville police was deleted, but his expert Scott Schaffer stated the information would be obtainable.
Duebbert's counsel, Michael Lawder of St. Louis, moved to compel production in November.
“Clearly social media posts about the matters herein are discoverable and to date the defendants have produced nothing,” he wrote.
“While defendants have denied that such posts exist, plaintiff is still entitled to this discovery regarding them,” he added.
“Plaintiff does not have to take their word on it and defendants can produce the information without much undue burden,” he continued.
Lawder wrote that defendants stated they traded in their phones, but “all of what is on the earlier phones is simply downloaded to the new phone.”
He wrote that there were at least 814 contacts among 16 phone numbers of persons involved in the case in the relevant period.
Beckett has set trial to begin next January.