Iroquois Co., Ill. (ECWd) –
A Freedom of Information Act request for search warrants and subpoenas sent to the Iroquois County Public Health Department in 2022 resulted in the court sealing those records the same day of our request. The request was in relation to the 33 felony count indictment of the former County Health Department Director we first reported on in this article.
Fast forward to March 21, 2024, we submitted another FOIA to the county for the same information because the court docket indicated the search warrants were unsealed the day before, March 20, 2024.
The county failed to respond in a timely manner and when they did respond they denied us the records as indicated in their closing letter here.
Our attorneys with Loevy and Loevy of Chicago filed a FOIA lawsuit against the county as first reported in this article.
“On 5/20/2024 we filed suit on behalf of Edgar County Watchdogs against Iroquois County for refusing to release copies of search warrants and subpoenas addressed to the county’s health department within the last two years. Iroquois County issued a FOIA denial claiming that release of the records would somehow interfere with a pending law enforcement investigation without providing any evidence to support its claim.”
Seven months after our FOIA request the State’s Attorney responded to our attorneys with a letter containing copies of the search warrants and a claim there were no subpoenas issued. Jim Divine, the Iroquois County State’s Attorney (SA), failed to redact the judge’s signature on the records.
Our understanding is once the SA realized he could not win this FOIA case because the records are in fact public records, in a public court docket, and the county response was not compliant with the mandated timeline, he produced the records.
Had the county complied with the FOIA request they would not now be dealing with having to pay our attorney’s fees.
Citizens should not have to sue their government to obtain public records. The message to all public bodies: stop playing games with the public.
A copy of the Search Warrants can be downloaded at this link or viewed below.
search-warrants-for-health-department
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