More Delays In Lawsuit Against Nygren

A federal judge approved part of request to amend his wrongful termination lawsuit against the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office on July 19. 

The former deputy sheriff asked for another amendment to his initial complaint filed in 2008 in federal court. 

He also is awaiting a decision from the Illinois Appellate court concerning a separate lawsuit to reinstate him in his job.

Seipler says he was fired for blowing the whistle on the department’s alleged practice of racial profiling; Sheriff Keith Nygren maintains Seipler was fired for misconduct on the job. 

U.S. District Court Magistrate P. Michael Mahoney allowed Seipler to amend on new allegations that the department has continued retaliation against him during the litigation and that Nygren is responsible for the actions of law enforcement officials he oversees. 

Mahoney denied Seipler’s request to admit evidence that two other deputy sheriffs suffered harassment and retaliation for speaking out against the alleged profiling, and he denied additional information Seipler says proves motivation for the department's alleged racial-profiling activities.

Nygren will be deposed for an additional hour, Mahoney said, otherwise the court will not permit further discovery to be added to the additional claims. 

Much of what Seipler requested in his latest pleadings is not new to the case, Mahoney said in his statement. 

Sheriff’s attorney Jim Sotos said the plaintiff’s latest motion is nothing more than a delay tactic. 

“He’s asked to extend the discovery cutoff more than 10 times,” Sotos said. “The judge just keeps letting him do it.” 

Seipler’s first amendment to his complaint was in March 2009, furthering discovery for more than two years. 

Sotos said that extended discovery is not uncommon in cases involving critical public policy issues or tens of millions of dollars. 

“An individual employment case for an individual public employee to involve this kind of litigation and this kind of time is an abomination,” he said. 

Sotos said these delays add additional expenses on to the already skyrocketing cost of the defense, which is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

On June 8, Sotos’ office subpoenaed Google in an effort to uncover the source of an anonymous Blogspot.com blog featuring official-looking documents from the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office. 

“We got some information from Google which included the IP address and the email address that it came from so now we’ve subpoenaed Comcast because they are the provider to try and get more specific information,” he said. 

Seipler did not immediately return a phone call for comment.