McHenry County State's Attorney's Office declines to investigate harassment claims against Lakewood trustee

McHenry County’s State’s Attorney’s Office has declined a request from Lakewood’s Village Board to investigate harassment claims against a trustee, saying it is not an investigatory agency.

Lakewood's Board of Trustees, in a 5-1 vote at a meeting in late July, approved a letter asking the county's top prosecutor, Patrick Kenneally, to start a criminal investigation into what the village called a "campaign of harassment" by Trustee Bryan Younge.

These allegations include implied physical threats, “harassing text messages sent at all hours of the night,” “withering” harassment of the village’s chief administrative officer and taunting via electronic communication, according to a copy of the letter.

Younge, in a statement to the Northwest Herald, characterized these allegations against him as retaliatory. He said he is being targeted after looking into complaints employees have made against Village President Phil Stephan and Chief Administrative Officer Jeannine Smith for creating a toxic work environment.

“This sort of retaliation is clearly defamatory in nature and I am addressing it,” Younge said in the statement.

In a letter to Smith dated Aug. 2, Norm Vinton, chief of the Civil Division in the State’s Attorney’s Office, said that generally speaking, a state’s attorney’s office does not investigate criminal allegations.

Instead, Vinton said in the letter, the primary function of the state’s attorney is to prosecute both civil and criminal actions, suits and indictments.

“We at the state’s attorney’s office primarily employ lawyers, not police officers,” Vinton said.

While on rare occasions, the state’s attorney’s office will investigate a matter, that’s only when there is no other agency that will do it, Vinton said. He suggested the village go to the Lakewood Police Department if it believes it has evidence that a crime has been committed.

If the Lakewood Police Department cannot investigate the allegations, the village can contact the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office or Illinois State Police, Vinton said.

Smith could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Younge said that he and Trustee Amy Odom have had more than 30 people come to them with complaints.

Multiple employees, from both the village of Lakewood and the village-owned RedTail Golf Club, have come forward to trustees and the Northwest Herald with written and verbal complaints because of name-calling, intimidation and inappropriate comments made by Stephan and Smith.

Younge said the board has been asked to address a long list of issues, include sexual harassment, sexual discrimination, racial discrimination, inappropriate and unauthorized use of funds, financial mismanagement, facilitation of a toxic work environment, fraud, assault, harassment, intimidation, retaliation, endangerment, breaches of contract and what Younge said are other acts of malfeasance.

Stephan previously has denied these allegations.

During a board meeting this summer, Lakewood Trustee Ryan Berman presented a report he wrote based on an investigation into these employee complaints that he conducted separately from Younge.

For this report, Berman said Smith, Stephan and five of the people who made these allegations were questioned. He said the investigation found no evidence to suggest any of the allegations were true, and he said that the matter is closed.

Four trustees, Brian Augustine, Doug Ulrich, Pamela Eddy and Berman, said they agreed with the findings in the report Berman presented. However, one trustee, Odom, said she wasn’t on board with the way the board handled the situation and did not agree with the investigation or its findings. Younge wasn’t present at that meeting.

Younge said in his statement that tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money have been spent in legal bills by dissenting board members.

He said these legal bills don’t do anything but cast “misinformation and untruths” to distract residents from learning the realities about “the nefarious and sad state of affairs within our village.”