(La Porte, IN) - The Indiana Attorney General is involved in a lawsuit against the LaPorte County Commissioners for refusing to provide the prosecutor with e-mails from the former prosecutor. The lawsuit, though not unexpected, comes after the commissioners were repeatedly warned that legal action was almost guaranteed if they had continued to deny the request of La Porte County Prosecutor Sean Fagan.

 

Fagan is listed as the plaintiff in the lawsuit, submitted June 2nd in La Porte Circuit Court by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita. Rokita’s office is paying the legal costs of the lawsuit from Fagan, who’s represented in the case by The Bopp Law Firm out of Terre Haute.

 

Fagan, who took office on January 1st, is asking for the e-mails of former prosecutor John Lake and several members of his staff from last year.

 

The lawsuit claims the e-mails on a county server are needed to close any gaps in information on cases Fagan inherited from his predecessor. According to the lawsuit, information that might be important to a case could come from a wide range of emails, potentially including talks with victims and opposing counsel in addition to communications between deputy prosecutors on matters like case strategy.

 

Citing state statute, the lawsuit maintains that, even though the e-mails are on a county server, they’re owned by whoever is prosecutor and the commissioners have no authority to deny access to the e-mails by the prosecutor, who is a judicial officer of the state. The lawsuit also alleges failure to comply with a prosecutor’s request for emails from the office under Indiana law constitutes official misconduct, a level 6 felony offense.

 

Commissioners Connie Gramarossa and Rich Mrozinski have stood their ground in repeatedly denying Fagan’s request, which was first made on January 5th. The last denial was made on April 5th, when the two commissioners again ignored the advice of their legal counsel along with a written demand from Rokita to turn over the e-mails. Andrew B. Jones has since been replaced as County Attorney by Scott Pejic, who chose not to comment on a pending legal matter.

 

Mrozinski also chose not to comment while attempts to reach Gramarossa were unsuccessful.

 

Gramarossa, though, has previously agreed to give Fagan the emails he needs from last year on specific cases only to protect county employees from having their privacy violated if total access was given to the server. However, the lawsuit argued a prosecutor cannot know which emails to request unless all of them are opened in advance to see which ones might be helpful to a case.

 

Mrozinski has repeatedly alleged Fagan is out to conduct a political witch hunt.

 

Commissioner Joe Haney, feeling the law is obviously on Fagan’s side, has consistently voted to grant his request, noting how the cost of the lawsuit for taxpayers is already estimated above $10,000 and could easily rise well into six figures.

 

“The actions of Commissioners Gramarossa and Mrozinski are absolutely reckless,” he said.

 

The lawsuit is asking Fagan be given all of the emails he requested along with a declaratory judgement that the emails were unlawfully withheld. A forensic audit of the server is also sought from the court to determine if any emails have been deleted and, if so, who had access to the emails.