Sheriff's Attorneys Become Witnesses in Seipler Lawsuit

An unexpected revelation has created a new twist in Zane Seipler’s wrongful termination lawsuit against McHenry County Sheriff’s Office. 

, defense attorneys had petitioned the federal court to dismiss the lawsuit, filed in 2008, alleging evidence showing the former deputy authored an anonymous Internet blog revealing sealed documents from his own case. 

In response to that petition, Seipler’s attorneys announced new evidence alleging the defense attorneys served as the department’s counsel in its internal investigation into racial profiling as alleged by Seipler. At the same time they were being paid as advisers/managers in the investigation in which they also were representing the department in Seipler’s lawsuit. 

The department touted the  as proof that racial profiling was never an issue in the department. The project took months of work to complete involving hundreds of man-hours and thousands of dollars. The highly publicized report was criticized by some as questionable due to the in-house nature of the study. 

In light of the attorney’s involvement, Seipler’s attorney called the investigation a “sham” designed to hide and cover up falsified tickets by an officer Seipler accused of racial profiling long before his termination from the department in 2007. 

“It’s uncommon for professional attorneys to do this,” said Blake Horwitz, Seipler’s attorney. “It demonstrates a desire to affect the outcome in a way to support your client.” 

Horwitz said that the information the defense attorneys were involved in the management of the investigation came about during the recent depositions of Sheriff Keith Nygren and Cmdr. Duane Cedergren. 

Defense attorney Jim Sotos said there was nothing unethical, illegal or even wrong with assisting the Sheriff’s Office with information on how to go about with its internal investigation. 

As his law office has extensive experience training police departments in internal investigations for racial profiling throughout Illinois, it made sense it would be the one to advise McHenry County Sheriff’s Office on its own investigation.  

“It was their investigation, it wasn’t our investigation,” he said. “We guided them in conducting the analysis and wherever the information took them; that’s where it took them.” 

Sotos said the results of the investigation were turned over to the plaintiff’s attorney during the discovery process and is not a part of the current litigation and that his firm’s involvement had not been a secret. 

Horwitz claimed in his motion that Nygren walked out of his deposition at the urging of his counsel on Aug. 30. He has petitioned the court for time to question the sheriff further, as well as time to complete an interrupted deposition of a deputy. 

Sotos said that Nygren walked from the conference room into his office at his request after Horwitz had exceeded the alloted time allowed by Magistrate Michael Mahoney for the deposition.

In fact, Sotos agreed to an additional five minutes for further questioning. But when Horwitz wanted even more time, Sotos called an end to the event.

Horwitz also has requested time to depose defense attorneys Jim Sotos and Elizabeth Barton, effectively making them witnesses in their own litigation. 

As for the possible sanctions against Seipler regarding the blog, Horwitz asked the court to allow the defendant more time in its discovery process. 

Sotos found it ironic that the plaintiff did not respond to the charges of purjury relating to Seipler's alleged connection to the blog, but rather hurled accusations against the defendant's attorneys in his latest motion.

This is the plaintiff's 13th emergency motion asking to postpone a court-ordered response since the lawsuit was filed. 

Mahoney had set a deadline of Aug. 31 for the plaintiff to respond to Sotos' request for dismissal.