College of DuPage – Obstructing justice?

DuPage Co. (ECWd) –

When a Federal Grand Jury and the DuPage County Grand Jury request specific records it would be wise to provide them, and by all indications that is not what COD has done.

My request for records was simple.  Copies of all subpoenas issued and the responsive documents provided under those subpoenas.

After reviewing the requests by both agencies and the responsive documents provided by COD, one thing was very clear.  The secret contract extensions for the COD President were not included in the records I received, which were supposed to be the same records they turned over to the authorities.  (Click here for copies of those missing records in the subpoena response)

Federal subpoena asked for:  (Click here for copies of those subpoena’s)

• “All personnel records for the COD president”

DuPage County Grand Jury asked for:

• “Copies of all Employment Agreements, contracts, extensions, and addendum’s  pertaining to the employment of Robert L. Breunder from 2008 to the present.”

Most would agree those extensions would be part of Breuder’s personnel records, and there is no confusion it would be a mandated document under the County’s request which specifically cites “extensions” to his contract.

Although we have no way of confirming if the authorities in this case received those documents, we can safely assume they did not based on the responsive records we obtained, which were required to be the very documents turned over to the authorities. Normally we would not disclose such records until the investigation was over, however, in this case we found nothing that we have not already written about and provided over the last 12 months. (Click here for the responsive documents provided by COD requested in the subpoena’s)

Looks like there are two possibilities for COD in this matter. :

• Possible obstruction of justice for failing to comply with the subpoena.
• Criminal concealment of public records if they turned them over to the authorities and not to us.

Either way, it does not look good for those folks at COD who are now being criminally investigated by multiple state and federal agencies.