McDonough County Sheriff Wrong – Deputy Reinstatment Ordered By Arbitrator

McDonough Co., Ill. (ECWd)

McDonough County Sheriff Nicholas Petitgout has been ordered to reinstate deputy Evan Schmalshof with full back pay and benefits.

Schmalshof filed a grievance against Petigout and the matter was arbitrated and ruled on last week.  In short,  Schmalshof did not lie nor violate policy as was claimed.  Those findings will surely be problematic for Petigout in the Federal Case against him brought by Schmalshof.

“After carefully considering the record in its entirety, including all of the evidence and arguments presented by the parties, it is held that the Employer violated Section 7 of the CBA and did not have just cause to terminate Deputy Evan Schmalshof.”

This ruling from the arbitration may create even more problems for Petigout in the Federal case.

According to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training Standards Board, Schmalshof was terminated as a full-time deputy on January  26, 2024, however, that appears to be premature on the Sheriff’s part considering a grievance was filed and had not been heard yet. 

We first covered Petigout in this article.  Petigout is known for pushing the envelope on matters, such as banning a Police Chief, Evan Schmalshof, from entering the jail.  We can only wonder what he expected the Chief to do with those he arrested.

There are additional concerning matters going on at the McDonough County Sheriff’s office which appear to be percolating to the surface.  We said in our first article, that the discovery in the Federal case is going to be most interesting.

We will update on the Federal case as it moves through the court.