SPRINGFIELD – Madison County Sheriff John Lakin improperly withheld records from former county information technology director Rob Dorman, according to assistant attorney general Matt Hartman.
He sent a letter to Lakin’s lawyer Heidi Eckert on Aug. 17, requesting that Lakin provide Dorman with copies of the records.
Hartman rejected Lakin’s claim that disclosure would interfere with pending or contemplated proceedings conducted by his office.
Dorman requested records twice in February, when he worked for county board chairman Kurt Prenzler.
First, he asked for records from a specially created public corruption task force, which had investigated him for two years without bringing any charges.
Second, he asked for a list of every person who touched his personal telephone that the task force seized in March 2018.
Lakin denied the requests, and Dorman asked Attorney General Kwame Raoul to review the denials.
Hartman, acting for Raoul, asked Lakin to provide him with the records for confidential review together with an explanation of the denials.
After months of review, Hartman sided with Dorman.
“The classification of information as law enforcement or investigatory does not necessarily foreclose access unless it can be shown in a particular case that disclosure would interfere with law enforcement and would therefore not be in the public interest,” Hartman wrote.
Hartman found Lakin didn’t demonstrate how disclosure would interfere with his proceedings, and wrote that conclusory statements were insufficient.
He quoted a binding opinion from 2017, that commencement of an investigation doesn’t constitute clear and convincing evidence of exemption for any records.
“This letter serves to close these matters,” he wrote.
The county board fired Dorman and administrator Doug Hulme in April.
They sued to recover their jobs and moved for an outside judge.
As of Aug. 18, Madison County Associate Judge Thomas Chapman presided.