Will County State's Attorney Employee, Daughter Charged With 5 Crimes: Special Prosecutor

JOLIET, IL — Special prosecutor Dave Neal has filed criminal charges of computer tampering, aggravated computer tampering and official misconduct against a woman who worked for several years at the Will County State's Attorney's Office as a legal secretary. Amy Burgett-Masse, 45, and her daughter Ryanne Burgett-Masse, 20, were both charged this week at the Will County Courthouse.

Amy Burgett-Masse has worked for the Will County State's Attorney's Office for at least 10 years. However, she and her daughter have been under investigation through the Will County Sheriff's Office for at least six months, according to court documents.

The computer tampering charge accuses the mother and her daughter of knowingly and without authorization of the Will County State's Attorney, having "accessed or caused to be accessed a computer ... a computer network, or a program or data from said computer network" against the peace and dignity of the state of Illinois.

The aggravated computer tampering charge accuses the mother and her daughter of accessing the State's Attorney's Office computer, computer network or a program or data and removing data "from said computer network" and creating "a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to one or more individuals, individuals identified as witnesses in certain criminal investigations and prosecutions in Will County."

Joliet Patch has learned that Amy Burgett-Masse is accused of allowing her 20-year-old daughter access to the workstations at the Will County State's Attorney's Office, which allowed her daughter to allegedly furnish information from various police reports and investigations to people she knew who were under criminal investigation.

The two counts of official misconduct were brought against Amy Burgett-Masse and those charges indicate that "she knowingly and without authorization of a computer's owner, the Will County State's Attorney ... accessed or caused to be accessed a computer ... and caused disruption of an interference with vital services or operations of a state or local government, the Office of the Will County State's Attorney."

The criminal complaint was filed by Dave Neal as a special prosecutor with the State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor.