County Cops Refuse to Release Recording of Killer Supposedly Putting Hit on Prosecutor

The Will County Sheriff’s Department has refused to release a recording of a convicted killer supposedly soliciting the murder of an assistant state’s attorney.

An inmate at the Will County jail, 51-year-old Samuel Wright of Wilmington, wore a wire for the police in an attempt to record fellow prisoner Brian Trainauskas as they discussed a plan to kill a prosecutor.

Trainauskas, 40, was in jail awaiting trial for murdering his friend Monica Timar in January 2009. Wright wore the wire in May 2011 after he told his attorney that Trainauskas offered $100,000 to kill Assistant State’s Attorney Nicole Moore.

The plot supposedly involved bringing in another man whom Wright would also kill, then frame for murdering both Moore and Timar. Trainauskas and Wright allegedly nicknamed Moore and the unidentified patsy “Olive Oyl” and “Elmer Fudd.”

In denying Patch’s request for the recording under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, the sheriff’s department claimed making it public might deprive someone, presumably Trainauskas, of receiving a fair trial or impartial hearing in a pending court case.

Trainauskas does still face a solicitation of murder charge but prosecutors already played excerpts of the wire recording last week in open court. Prosecutors used the recording in hopes of convincing Judge Dave Carlson to hand down a 100-year prison sentence. Carlson gave Trainauskas 70 years.

The excerpts played in court were unintelligible.

In denying Patch’s request, the sheriff’s department also claimed the recording was not subject to release under state law since it contains “biometric identifiers.” When asked if these “biometric identifiers” have anything to do with the utterly terrible quality of the recording, a spokesperson for the sheriff cited state law that says the department is under no obligation to “interpret or advise requesters as to the meaning or significance of the public records.”

During Trainauskas’ sentencing hearing, Detective Anthony Policandriotes testified to creating a written transcript of the recording on his own without assistance from anyone else. One of Trainauskas’ attorneys, George Andrews, said the transcript was of no help in deciphering what was supposedly said on the recording.

“At no point, if I lost my place (on the transcript), could I have ever found it because I couldn’t make out what they said Brian was saying,” Andrews said.

Andrews also said Policandriotes should have sought help in improving the quality of the audio.

“I think at the minimum they should have sent it to some crime lab to clean it up,” Andrews said. “I don’t think a layman should have been doing that. I certainly couldn’t make it out.”

Andrews said he “couldn’t make out anything” on the recording and believed it was indicative of the work done by department on the rest of the murder investigation.

“This is just a continuation of the Will County Sheriff doing the bare minimum,” he said, adding, “The whole case was replete with loose ends.”