McHenry County Blog

Three committees have been discussion the Correctional Officers contract which is to be voted upon next Tuesday night, but, strangely, my Freedom of Information request for it was denied today.

Imagine my surprise when I found the contract posted among the papers in the County Board packet for Tuesday.

The full McHenry County Correctional Officers Unit II Negotiated Contract can be found here.  If there are any labor relations folks among readers, please share your analysis or comments.

The salary schedule shown in the proposed Corrections Officers Unit II Contract.

As you can see these county jobs pay pretty well.

And they will be increased 2-3% per year over the three-year period.

Vacations aren’t bad either.  A full month in the 11th year.

Here's the proposed vacation schedule.

I note that Unit II has shown up once before on McHenry County Blog.  Look here, if you are curious.  Lots and lots of comments under that article.

Day room in the McHenry County Jail. There's no internet way to find out who is incarcerated.

A couple of weeks ago I praised the McHenry County Sheriff’s Department for enabling people like me to copy press releases from that page on the Sheriff’s Department web site for the first time.

I wish the Sheriff’s Department would put McHenry County Blog on its press release list, as the Crystal Lake Police Department has, but that’s in the Sheriff’s Department’s discretion and, while a potential lost to readers here, no big deal, except for what it says about the Department’s willingness to share public information.

Most readers of McHenry County Blog come to its front page to read the most recent articles.

A number of readers, however, are looking for something that happened in the past, however.

I have found it is not unusual to have two percent of the hits on an article entitled,

“Finding Someone in County Jail“

My guess is that people are trying to find out if a friend or relative is in the McHenry County Jail.

Alas, the article, written a year and a half ago, has no link to a resource that would provide that information.

It does show such links for virtually all big counties in Illinois. Take a look at what I found in May of 2010:

Major Illinois counties with search engines for those incarcerated in their jails.

I speculated that new Undersheriff Andy Zinke had taken the step to make it possible to copy press releases.

Now I wonder if he might see if he could get some software from another big Illinois county so people trying to find folks in jail might do so without a phone call.

McHenry County Blog continues looking at what Special Prosecutor Henry Tonigan’s investigating firm Quest International billed for in its criminal investigation of McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi and his staff.

Yesterday, we looked at September, October and November, 2010, bills. Today we cover December’s and those of January, 2011.

Robert Scigalski, Lee Flose, Patrick Hanretty, Gerald Theis, James P. Reilly and Dan Jerger bill the Special Prosecutors $135 per hour, except for some travel, which Scigalski notes he bills at $70 an hour. The others do not bill $70 for travel time.

Photo of Robert Scigalski by First Electric Newspaper

12-1-10 9 hours – Scigalski: Call to Zinke re Reid and Wonder Lake Officer K. O’Connor. To CL interview Chief, Dep. Chief Lowery & Det. Majzner at Crystal Lk PD & meet with ASA DT [Demetri Tsilimigras] & PREP reports / Report to McQueen

12-1-10 1 hour – Scigalski: Travel to and from Crystal Lake, IL 44 miles ($70 x2)

12-1-10 3 hours – Hanretty: Serve subpoena to Detective Kurt, Crystal Lake P.D. and prepare affidavits.

12-2-10 3 hours – Hanretty: Obtain subpoenaed materials from American Banks & Trust & deliver to Judge Tonigan’s office. Prepare affidavits.

12-3-11 3 hours – Scigalski: To Woodstock at GJ [Grand Jury] with witnesses Review Documents for leads

12-3-10 1.5 hours – Scigalski: Travel to and from Woodstock, IL 80 M )$70 x2)

12-3-10 0.5 hours – Jerger: Prepared and teleconferenced with Tom Sullivan, updated and emailed Tom McQueen.

12-6-11 4 hours – Jerger: Prepared, traveled to and returned from 2200 N. Seminary Ave., Woodstock, IL 60098. Department data collection. Collected Qo90838-T15. Teleconferenced with Tom McQueen to update.

12-7-10 2 hours – Scigalski: Review DT’s additional Docs he provided and send PDF inventory. Work on photos for discovery.

12-9-10 4 hours – Scigalski: Meeting with McQueen re materials for Morzoz & Reid leads. Review Salvi remaining leads

12-10-10 1 hour – Scigalski: Work on discovery request / review email request of McQueen

12-20-10 5 hours – Scigalski: Prepare for and meeting at Tonigan’s office to discuss evidence & determine interview assignments/ review prior interviews for details and organize schedule and strategies.

12-17-10 1.75 hours – Scigalski: Review prison tapes of Reid and Morzos and discuss transcription strategy

12-17-10 2 hours – Jerger: Prepared evidence for searching indexing. Begin searches.

12-20-0 2.5 hours – Jerger: Continued indexing and searching of T-15 emails. Prepared and teleconferenced with Judge Tonigan Tom McQueen and Bob Scigalski regarding findings. Emailed search results.

12-27-10 1 hour – Hanretty: Meet Seigalski to obtain case materials.

12-28-10 2.5 hours – Scigalski: Meeting at Skip Tonigan’s Office

12-28-10 1 hour – Hanretty: Research contact information for Sue Serdar and interview.

Prisoner phone calls in the McHenry County Jail are apparently recorded.

12-29-10 3 hours – Scigalski: Prepare for and attend meeting at Judge Tonigan’s office with attorney McQueen to discuss strategy. Return and review leads for assignments.

12-29-11 2.25 hours – Reilly: Review of McHenry County Jail recorded phone calls for info of value.

12-30-10 3.5 hours – Scigalski: Prepare for an attend meeting at Judge Tonigan’s office with attorney McQueen to discuss strategy. Return and review leads for assignments.

12-30-10 4 hours – Reilly:Tel cal to ICSolutions for tech support. Tell cal to D. Jerger; Review McHenry County Jail recorded phone calls for info of value.

12-31-10 3.5 hours – Scigalski: Conference call w/ Lowery/then w McQueen/with ASA Carroll/Review contact made w treas./rev contribution docs

12-31-10 1 hour – Hanretty: Research contact information begin attempts to contact to arrange interview

12-31-10 4.5 hours – Reilly: Review McHenry County Jail recorded phone calls for info of value.

January, 2011, bills tomorrow.

A press release from the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office:

INMATE SUICIDE CASE DISMISSED SECOND TIME

Louis A. Bianchi, McHenry County State’s Attorney, announces that his Office has succeeded again in obtaining the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Michelle Smith of Crystal Lake, Illinois due to an in-custody suicide of her former husband, Ricky Smith.

Ms. Smith first sued the Sheriff and three corrections officers in Federal Court wherein the State’s Attorney’s Office obtained a dismissal in Defendant’s favor, and then most recently in State Court for wrongful death.

In making his ruling today dismissing the State Court lawsuit, the Honorable Judge Meyer found that the prior victory obtained by the State’s Attorney’s Office in Federal Court barred Ms. Smith’s wrongful death case in State Court.

The recently dismissed State case was defended by Assistant State’s Attorney Donald B. Leist.

A view from the McHenry County Jail.

A complaint has been made to the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the Department of Homeland Security about mistreatment and abuse of sexual minorities by the Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center.

You can read the full complaint here.

I have put the part where McHenry County is mentioned in a complaint filed with ICE in bold face type below. The detainee mentioned is one of thirteen used in this complaint.

It’s in the Long-Term Solitary Confinement portion of the document.

Long-Term Solitary Confinement

ICE detained a number of the complainants in restrictive segregation – ranging from solitary confinement to “lock down” in their cells for 22 hours per day. Complainants endured this treatment for extended periods – up to months at a time – without formal determinations of the necessity of segregation and without an appeals process. At least one court has found that a blanket policy of placing transgender immigration detainees in restrictive segregation, absent articulation of a specific need to do so, violates due process rights.7 Other practices and policies detailed in the complaints, such as restricting access to recreation and reading material, are blatantly punitive in nature and thus violate constitutional protections. As the following complaints highlight:

 [Delfino] was held in segregation for four months, justifying their decision on the basis that [Delfino] presented “effeminately.” Facility staff refused to provide [Delfino] a Bible and permitted him only one hour of recreation – in a cold nine-by-thirteen-foot cell – per day. (Houston Processing Center, Texas)

 [Raquel]’s freedom of movement was restricted and she was denied privileges such as reading material available to the general population. (McHenry County Jail, Illinois)

 Sexual minorities were assigned to 22-hour lock down “protective custody”) without individualized analysis of the need for this restriction, and without affording detainees the opportunity to rebut this classification.

Individuals in “protective custody” had far less freedom of movement and access to recreation than individuals in the general population. Facility staff often restricted recreation time for sexual minorities to less than one hour a day. (Theo Lacy Facility, California)

ICE’s recent issuance of guidance (“Housing Directive”) on restrictive housing assignments8 does not sufficiently address detention facilities’ inability to provide safe, unsegregated and unrestrictive housing for a vulnerable detainee. The Housing Directive proposes transferring the individual to another facility; that does not address the issue.

Rather than shuffling detainees between inadequate detention centers, as happened for several of the individuals submitting complaints, ICE should acknowledge its inability to provide legally adequate detention conditions and prioritize alternatives to detention.

Under a heading entitled, “Discrimination and Abuse:”

[Raquel] suffered severe psychological abuse by, and with the acquiescence of,facility staff. After months of strain, [Raquel] had a mental breakdown at and wastransferred to the hospital ward of another detention facility. (Kenosha County

A press release from McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren:

It’s Official: McHenry County Sheriff’s Office Receives CALEA Accreditation

Chinese young political leaders toured the McHenry County Jail.

Sheriff Keith Nygren is pleased to announce that the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office has received Advanced Law Enforcement Accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). The Sheriff’s Office received their accreditation on Saturday, March 26, 2011, at the CALEA conference in Bethesda, MD.

In order to be considered for accreditation the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office had to demonstrate compliance with 464 individual standards.

Those standards ensure that an agency is operating according to a best practices model established by CALEA. CALEA’s stated goals for accreditation are to:

• Strengthen Crime Prevention and Control Capabilities
• Improve Service Delivery
• Solidify interagency cooperation and coordination; and
• Increase community and staff confidence in the agency

The McHenry County Sheriff’s Office is one of three Sheriff’s Offices, in Illinois, accredited by CALEA.

It is also the third McHenry County agency who has received accreditation. The other two are McHenry PD and Huntley PD.

Sheriff Nygren wishes to thank the community for their support to the Sheriff’s Office throughout this process.

They can be assured that accreditation represents the ongoing commitment to maintaining an excellent relationship with the community we serve, and our commitment to providing the best possible service to the citizens of McHenry County.

WGN Shooting Tape of Former Deputy Sheriff Zane Seipler

WGN's Mark Suppelsa was at Zane Seipler's home recently shooting tape for WGN-TV.

A WGN-TV crew was in Woodstock recently shooting for a segment that will probably coordinate with a Chicago Tribune story.

You may remember that McHenry County Blog told you what the Tribune reporter sought through a Freedom of Information request from Keith Nygren’s McHenry County Sheriff’s Department:

• Tribune Seeks 4 Years of McHenry County Jail Booking Data
• Four Years of Racial Profiling Instructions Requested by Tribune
• Tribune Asks for 4 Years of Booking Photos from McHenry County Jail
• Tribune Probes 4 Years of Traffic Stops by McHenry County Sheriff’s Department
• Tribune Seeks Deputy Disciplinary Investigations for Improper Vehicle Code Logging

The last multi-media attention received in McHenry County concerned Lakewood’s McHenry County SportsPlex.

McHenry County Jail entrance.

32-year old Orlando Tapia-Fonseca, the illegal alien from Mexico who was sentenced to 41-months in Federal prison and, then, a second deportation, was convicted in Brown County, Wisconsin, in 1998 of second degree sexual assault on a child.

He got nine months in jail and two years probation and was deported on August 8, 1998.

Tapia-Fonseca was arrested May 30, 2011, for resisting arrest and possession of cannabis.

The following press release details how a Mexican criminal was sent back to his homeland, but returned. Now he is going to Federal prison.

The interesting part of the release to me is the reference to his having been found by “McHenry County law enforcement.”

MEXICAN CITIZEN SENTENCED TO 41 MONTHS IN FEDERAL PRISON FOR ILLEGALLY RE-ENTERING THE UNITED STATES

ROCKFORD — PATRICK J. FITZGERALD, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and GARY J. HARTWIG, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, today made the following announcement:

Orlando Tapia-Fonseca

Yesterday afternoon, United States District Judge Frederick J. Kapala sentenced ORLANDO TAPIA-FONSECA, 32, who is a citizen of Mexico, to 41 months in prison for illegally re-entering the United States following his previous deportation to Mexico.

Tapia-Fonseca was originally  indicted by a federal grand jury on August 10, 2010, and charged with illegally re-entering the United States. Tapia-Fonseca pled guilty to the charge on November 19, 2010.

According to plea agreement, Tapia-Fonseca was convicted of an aggravated felony in Brown County, Wisconsin, on April 8, 1998, and sentenced to 9 months in jail and 2 years of probation.

The back of the McHenry County Jail

As stated in the plea agreement, Tapia-Fonseca was then ordered removed from the United States on July 30, 1998.

Tapia-Fonseca further admitted that sometime after August 8, 1998, he illegally re-entered the United States without obtaining the appropriate consent of either the United States Attorney General, or the Department of Homeland Security.

The Department of Homeland Security was alerted to Tapia-Fonseca’s presence in the United States on June 22, 2010, upon being notified by McHenry County law enforcement.

In addition to the 41 months’ prison sentence, the court ordered Tapia-Fonseca to surrender to immigration authorities following his release from prison.

The case was investigated by the Chicago office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The case was prosecuted in federal court by Assistant United States Attorney SCOTT A. VERSEMAN.

Thomas Puchmelter hung himself in his McHenry County Jail cell last weekend.

While the Sheriff’s Office has not released much information. Daily Herald reporter Harry Hitzeman writes that a Freedom of Information request has been filed for the internal investigation report, which Undersheriff Andy Zinke says is not completed.

What struck my eye in the Daily Herald story was the following paragraph about an interview with his mother, an assault on whom led to his jailing:

Thomas J. Puchmelter decided death was better than state prison. This is the photo of when he was arrested by Crystal Lake Police.

She says Thomas was taking anti-anxiety medication and was probably mentally ill. She said her son went to prison in Joliet earlier in his life and was terrified of going back.

With all the correspondence I have received from men who have been raped in prison during my last six years in the Illinois General Assembly, please excuse me if I think such an experience might have been going through Thomas Puchmelter’s mind as he debated whether life in prison could be worse than death.

The following letter from Just Detention International Executive Director Lovisa Stannow about the U.S. Justice Department’s belated request (regulations were supposed to go into effect last July 1st, according to the law) for comments on its proposed rape in prison regulations provides up to date information:

Justice Department Confirms Appalling Human Rights Crisis: 216,600 Inmates Sexually Abused in One Year

At long last, yesterday the Department of Justice launched its 60-day public comment period on proposed national standards addressing sexual abuse in detention. In an extensive report, the Department also released, for the first time, its own estimate of the number of inmates who endured sexual abuse while behind bars in a one-year period: 216,600.

That’s right: 216,600. This number is a devastating confirmation of what JDI has claimed for years — sexual abuse in U.S. detention is a horrific, nationwide human rights crisis.

Let’s put 216,600 in perspective: almost 600 prisoners a day are subjected to rape and other forms of sexual abuse while in the government’s care.

Or, put differently, 25 inmates are abused every hour of every day.

That number reflects only the first time each person was victimized during a one-year period; the number of incidents of sexual abuse is several times higher, as many inmates are assaulted again and again.

Prisoner rape survivors continue to be locked up with their assailants, unable to escape — forced to live in constant fear of another attack, their trauma renewed every time they see their abusers. These are our fellow human beings; men, women, and children who one day will return home to their families and communities.

At JDI, we hope that these shocking numbers will, once and for all, force the corrections community to acknowledge the full extent of the crisis of sexual abuse and rally in favor of strong national standards to end it.

After an initial review, we can say that the revised standards contain both positive points — such as requiring staff to consider the factors that make someone more vulnerable to abuse when making housing decisions — as well as negative ones — such as allowing prison grievance policies to put harsh limits on how much time a survivor has after an assault to file a formal report.

As we continue our analysis of the standards, we will provide you with further updates and insights — and we encourage all of our supporters and allies to join us in providing feedback on the revised standards.

After the conclusion of the 60-day public comment period (March 24) the Department of Justice will review the input it has received and modify the measures before formalizing them as federal regulations. According to the press release accompanying the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Justice Department plans to complete this process before the end of 2011.

Thank you for helping us make sure that the Department of Justice and corrections facilities across the country take seriously their responsibility to end the sexual abuse of inmates.

Lovisa Stannow,
Executive Director