Judge says release of information OK
By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI - jduchnowski@nwherald.com
WOODSTOCK – A McHenry County judge declined Friday to hold former special prosecutor David O’Connor in criminal contempt, stating that he was not surprised that O’Connor gave a state agency secret grand jury transcripts.
Wes Pribla, an attorney for former McHenry County State’s Attorney’s office secretary Amy Dalby, asked Judge Joseph Condon to hold O’Connor in contempt for giving grand jury transcripts related to Dalby’s case to a state agency that investigates attorney ethical misconduct.
O’Connor investigated allegations that Dalby copied computer files from State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi’s office and handed them to his political rivals during the 2008 Republican primary campaign.
Dalby maintained that she took the documents to provide examples of improper campaign work that Bianchi required her to perform from December 2004 to July 2006, but she ultimately accepted a misdemeanor plea bargain for computer tampering.
No one else was criminally charged, but Pribla said O’Connor pursued ethical complaints against two other attorneys, neither of whom are in Bianchi’s office.
O’Connor has declined to discuss that publicly but confirmed in the courtroom Friday that he gave documents to the administrator of the Illinois Attorneys Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
Pribla argued that Condon gave O’Connor permission June 1 to give the transcripts and other documents to other prosecutorial agencies, but that the ARDC was not a prosecutorial agency.
Condon disagreed with Pribla and pointed to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 752, which states that the ARDC administrator shall “prosecute disciplinary cases” against attorneys.
Condon said O’Connor had indicated during an earlier, private conference that he would feel ethically bound to make a report to the ARDC if investigative materials revealed potential ethical problems during Dalby’s case. Condon said O’Connor requested permission to turn the otherwise confidential documents over to other prosecutorial agencies not too long after that conference.
“It was specifically within my contemplation when I signed that order [June 1] that Mr. O’Connor may be sending information from the grand jury to the administrator of the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission,” Condon said.
O’Connor said he may ask Condon to require Pribla to pay costs association with the motion for contempt. O’Connor said Pribla should have realized the ARDC was a prosecutorial agency.
“A minimal effort on any attorney’s part would show that’s exactly what the ARDC is,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor also said it was “highly inappropriate” for Pribla to speculate about complaints made to the ARDC.
The ARDC keeps complaints private until formal charges are approved against an attorney, but the parties who lodge or who are involved in the complaints are not required to keep the information confidential, said James Grogan, deputy administrator and chief counsel for the ARDC.
The agency receives about 6,000 complaints a year, but many cases involve clients who are concerned about poor communication or neglect, Grogan said. Most are discharged in the early investigation phase.
