The Will County State’s Attorney’s Office released a termination letter regarding one of its employees after they were found to have violated a state transparency law.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s Office issued a rare binding opinion on Feb. 10 that found State’s Attorney James Glasgow’s Office violated the Freedom of Information Act by improperly withholding the termination letter for Amy Burgett-Masse, 44, of Elwood.

Burgett-Masse was a legal secretary for Glasgow’s office who was fired May 23, 2025. She faces charges of official misconduct and aggravated computer tampering. Her daughter, Ryane Burgett-Masse, 20, is also charged with aggravated computer tampering.

Glasgow’s office “did not demonstrate” that disclosure of the termination letter would deprive Burgett-Masse “or any other party of a fair trial or impartial hearing,” according to the Feb. 10 letter from R. Douglas Rees, chief deputy attorney general.

Raoul’s office also did not find the disclosure of the letter would “materially impact witness testimony.”

Glasgow’s office had 35 days to comply with the attorney general’s binding opinion or seek an administrative review in court.

After more than a month of no answers, Shaw Local contacted Glasgow’s office on the 34th day and was told the office would release the termination letter the day after the 35th day.

Shaw Local agreed and the letter was disclosed on March 18.

It’s rare for the attorney general’s office to issue binding opinions against government agencies in Illinois that violate requests from the public or media seeking access to records.

Since 2020, the attorney general’s public access bureau has received 21,704 requests to review FOIA requests and issued 59 binding opinions on FOIA requests, according to annual reports from the attorney general’s office.

Usually, the attorney general issues non-binding opinions on whether violations occurred.

The last time Shaw Local received a binding opinion was Sept. 24, 2019 against the Joliet Police Department. The attorney general’s office ruled in favor of Shaw Local receiving police reports with minimal redactions on the narrative content.

During certain points in 2019, the police department would not provide information on arrests, which led to Shaw Local to request police reports through FOIA. But the reports were heavily redacted.

Glasgow’s office sought to keep Burgett-Masse termination letter confidential because it contained what they considered “non-public information” about the events leading to her termination, which would “interfere with the pending criminal prosecution and picking of a jury.”

Raoul’s office determined the termination letter was not created for law enforcement purposes but as a personnel record that documents the termination of Burgett-Masse’s employment, according to the Feb. 10 letter from Rees.

Glasgow’s office did not show that revealing “previously undisclosed information” in the termination letter is likely to “garner intense pretrial publicity” that could taint the pool of potential jurors in a county as large as Will County, Rees’s letter said.

Will County has a population of 708,583 as of 2024 and it is considered the fourth largest in Illinois.

“Also, even if some potential jurors were exposed to the letter, voir dire may be used to identify and exclude potential jurors whose knowledge of relevant information may render them unable to be impartial,” according to Rees’ letter.

Voir dire, French for “to speak the truth,” is a process where potential jurors are questioned by either a judge or attorneys to to determine their suitability for jury service, according to the Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute.

The same point was raised in an attorney general non-binding opinion on why the police reports should have been disclosed during the early pretrial stage in the felony theft case against Theodore Brodeur, 60, the former CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Will and Grundy Counties.