Revenge Porn Suit At Police Department: Joliet Legal Fees $677,000

JOLIET — On March 20, Joliet Patch reported that Joliet Police Officer Cassie Socha and her lawyer Hall Adams of Chicago settled their federal civil rights lawsuit for a grand total of $287,000 to resolve the revenge porn lawsuit against her employer, the Joliet Police Department, and the City of Joliet, but that was only part of the story.

This week, a spreadsheet showing the city's outside expense legal costs during the past seven years of federal litigation on Socha's case totaled nearly $677,000, according to Joliet Patch's Freedom of Information Act request.

Rosemaria DiBenedetto, Joliet's media engagement and communications director, issued the following statement on behalf of Joliet in regard to the city's legal fees.

"The city respectfully but vigorously defended the case against it and the city's employees," DiBenedetto wrote. "To avoid any potential conflict of interest, the city was represented by one law firm while the employees was represented by another.

"Initially, the plaintiff filed against multiple parties who were later dismissed. After the discovery process concluded, the city successfully won a dispositive motion involving complex legal issues at the federal trial court level, which would have ended the case. However, the plaintiff counsel appealed the ruling. The net outcome was that the city was successful in dismissing all of the federal claims and eliminating plaintiff's claims for attorneys' fees against the city.

"After mediation with a federal judge, the initial demand of $950,000 ended up with a settlement of a substantially lower amount. This case was filed on August 21, 2018, and was approximately six and a half years old at the time of settlement. This has brought closure to the case and avoids the expense of continuing litigation."

According to Joliet Patch's tallies of the city's lawsuit expenses, the $287,000 settlement for Socha plus the $677,000 in outside legal expenses to defend and prolong the litigation, ended up costing the city $964,000.

As for Socha, her August 2018 federal lawsuit named then-Joliet Police Sgt. Ed Grizzle and up to 20 members of the Joliet Police Department, who were only identified in federal court filings as John Does. Although the Will County State's Attorney's Office regularly files charges at the courthouse against people accused of engaging in revenge porn schemes, not one member of the Joliet Police Department ever faced any charges for improperly circulating Officer Socha's nude videos from her private phone of her and her husband, fellow Officer Nick Crowley.

"A number of officers and other department personnel viewed these images and republished them," Adams told Joliet Patch in 2020. "They were showing them to other people, and this included some high-level people."

Current Mokena chief of police, Brian Benton, was the chief of police of Joliet at the time the agency and Sgt. Grizzle obtained a search warrant for Socha's phone from Will County longtime Judge Sarah Jones, seeking "evidence of the offense of harassment via electronic communications, intimidation."

Once Socha's private cell phone was obtained by her department, members of her agency began making copies and sharing around nude photos and videos that Socha had of herself and Crowley, according to her lawsuit.

When Socha filed her August 2018 lawsuit naming the city of Joliet and Grizzle, who has since retired, as co-defendants, Joliet opted to retain outside counsel to defend the city.

The law firm retained by Joliet to defend Sgt. Grizzle was Knight, Hoppe, Kurnik & Knight, located in Rosemont. The law firm retained by the city to defend Joliet was Tressler LLP., a Bolingbrook full-service law firm on Boughton Road.

The legal expenses sent to Joliet by Knight to defend Grizzle total roughly $250,000. Knight's last bill to Joliet occurred in July 2024. Knight managed to get Grizzle dropped from the lawsuit as a co-defendant, and a federal appeals court upheld the U.S. District Court's decision from 2023.

Although the presiding federal judge initially dismissed Socha's federal lawsuit in 2023, that judge was overruled by an appeals court in 2024. The appeals court reinstated Socha's lawsuit against the city of Joliet, but not Sgt. Grizzle.

As a result, Tressler incurred a lot higher legal fees than Knight. Tressler incurred at least $420,000 in expenses since former interim city of Joliet manager Marty Shanahan retained Tressler to handle the city's defense in the Socha lawsuit.

Joliet Patch's review of Joliet's roughly $677,000 in outside legal expenses indicates that two of the 20 lawyers who work at Knight — which now goes by Clark, Johnson & Knight— billed Joliet at an hourly rate of $230 for their time defending Sgt. Grizzle's role in the Socha case.

The two lawyers who billed the Joliet taxpayers for their work were Michael J. Atkus, who is senior counsel at the Rosemont firm, and Matthew S. Clark, who is partner.

As for Tressler, the Bolingbrook and Chicago-based law firm that defended the city — and ultimately worked out the $287,000 settlement paid out by Joliet's taxpayers — three of Tressler's lawyers regularly billed Joliet for their legal expertise: Darcy Proctor, who billed Joliet at $230 per hour, John O'Driscoll, who also billed $230 per hour and Drew O'Donnell, who billed Joliet at $215 per hour.

The recent $287,000 settlement that went to Socha was to be split between her and her lawyer, according to the terms of the settlement.

Cassie Socha Federal Lawsuit Costs For Joliet:

Joliet's year-to-year breakdown for the two outside law firms from Rosemont and Bolingbrook defending Joliet and Sgt. Ed Grizzle in Officer Socha's federal lawsuit were as follows:

2018: $33,495
2019: $38,552
2020: $80,947
2021: $236,607
2022: $198,815
2023: $38,837
2024: $43,684
2025: $5,840 (two months, January and February)

Totals: $676,777

Related Joliet Patch coverage:

• Sex Videos Of 2 Joliet Cops Illegally Seized, Shared: Lawsuit
• Socha's Revenge Porn Lawsuit: Roechner Got Rid Of His Phone
• Socha's Revenge Porn Lawsuit: Joliet Police Lose Key Ruling
• Revenge Porn Joliet Police Lawsuit: JPD Depositions Underway
• Officer Crowley Gets Disciplined By Joliet PD