IDOT, ISP, and Court Seals Workplace Gun Violence Records Until Trial Over –

Benton, Ill (ECWd) –

According to court records, the Illinois Department of Transportation and Franklin County State’s Attorney have convinced the Court to seal all records of the Misdemeanor charges against former IDOT employee and current Benton City Commissioner Donald Storey through the duration of the trial.

It is an Agreed Protective Order to “protect the respective interests of the parties, the ISP, the IDOT, the public, and the Court” – the public’s right to know must not matter in Franklin County.

We have started seeing a pattern in Illinois courts with local public officials getting courts (DuPage County DUI case, Coles County official misconduct case, and now Franklin County gun in workplace case) to sign off on the sealing of records, including police reports and mugshots citing the protecting of party interests.

The Storey records, including investigatory records, cannot be released prior to the conclusion of Defendant’s criminal proceedings.

Read our previous articles on this incident (here).

The incident narrative indicated in the FOIA responses from the ISP, pursuant to a FOIA lawsuit and received prior to the court sealing the records, states that “Storey walked to his car that was parked in the IDOT lot, produced a handgun, and discharged the handgun several times into the air. He then left the IDOT yard and returned a short time later with another IDOT employee.”