BELLEVILLE - Defendants in former St. Clair County Circuit Judge Ron Duebbert’s malicious prosecution suit must reveal communications among themselves to Duebbert’s forensic expert in person.
Champaign County Circuit Judge Chad Beckett ordered disclosure on Jan. 23 and set a Feb. 22 deadline for a session involving parties, counsel, and possibly the judge.
Duebbert’s expert Scott Schaffer can’t leave the room unless Duebbert’s counsel, Michael Lawder of St. Louis, arranges otherwise ahead of time, Beckett ordered.
The data stream will start at June 1, 2016, and end at Aug. 1, 2018.
The order applies to State Police Director Brendan Kelly in his former position as St. Clair County State’s Attorney.
Kelly didn’t prosecute Duebbert due to a conflict of interest, but Duebbert claims Kelly remained active on the special prosecution team.
Beckett’s order also applies to lawyer Alex Enyart, who brought former Duebbert client Carlos Rodriguez to Belleville police to accuse Duebbert of sexual abuse.
The order also applies to officers Daniel Collins and Timothy Crimm, who took the statement.
Felony charges resulted, but Rodriguez altered his account; and visiting judge Michael McHaney, now an appellate judge with the Fifth District, dismissed the charges.
Duebbert sued St. Clair County, the City of Belleville, Kelly, Enyart, Collins, Crimm and Rodriguez in 2020.
Last year, he moved to compel downloads of social media, cell phone and cloud accounts.
Beckett heard argument on Dec. 11 and in six weeks devised a plan for a deep data dive.
He ordered defense expert Jack Nevins to conduct a search in Schaffer’s presence and in consultation with him.
He also ordered Nevins to search Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Linked In accounts for the City of Belleville, Kelly, Enyart, Collins and Crimm.
He wrote that Nevins would contact defendants or their representatives “to facilitate any two factor authorization necessary to effectuate the downloads.”
He specified that Nevins would keep passwords private.
Beckett added that Nevins would download information from cell phones, personal or work, of Kelly, Enyart, Collins and Crimm.
He wrote that Nevins would search cloud accounts “for any information retrievable.”
Searches will relate to Duebbert or to his criminal prosecution.
Beckett wrote that in the event of a dispute, experts or counsel may contact him directly by telephone for immediate relief.
He ordered the parties to provide the results in a thumb drive for review in chambers.
He wrote that he’d determine what data is discoverable, and such data would be available to the parties in a thumb drive.
Schaffer and Nevins would be made available to Beckett for further consultation should it be necessary.
Schaffer and Nevins were also ordered to certify an agreement to appear in future proceedings upon subpoena of either party or court order.
Beckett wrote that Duebbert would pay for Schaffer’s work and defendants would allocate the cost of Nevins’s work among themselves.
He has set trial to begin next January.