Online Newspaper Wins FOIA Judgment Against McHenry County Sheriff

An online news publisher was awarded $80,000 by a McHenry County judge to cover attorney’s fees and court costs in a legal battle between First Electric Newspaper and the McHenry County sheriff.

Publisher Pete Gonigam wanted a copy of a report former Sheriff Keith Nygren used to clear his undersheriff of wrongdoing in the disclosure of a secret DEA investigation to a campaign supporter.

Judge Thomas Meyer also penalized the sheriff last month for violation of the Freedom of Information Act, reports the Northwest Herald, ordering him to pay that sum to Gonigam.

First Electric Newspaper, which covers Algonquin, Lake in the Hills and Huntley, reported the news on its website:

“This case wouldn’t have cost nearly so much if the judge hadn’t decided Nygren could have an ‘adjudication’ all by himself to exempt the report from disclosure,” said FEN publisher Pete Gonigam in an autointerview. Meyer only ruled the Sheriff’s Office had to turn over the investigation of then-Undersheriff Andy Zinke’s outing a DEA investigation to a campaign supporter after FEN proved Zinke let a Northwest Herald reporter read it before FEN ever asked for it.

Separately, Deputy Administrator Scott Hartman emailed FEN Wednesday that McHenry County was ready to pay the $5,000 fine Meyer levied against the Sheriff’s Office last month for “willfully” withholding the report. Said Gonigam, “That’ll help finance the appeal to close the hole in the Illinois Freedom of Information Act before anyone one else in one of McHenry County’s other 138 governmental bodies tries to jump through it.”

Ordinarily, such an investigative report is exempt under FOIA law, but because Zinke showed the report to Northwest Herald, his wife and others, he waived his exemption, the judge ruled.