Will County Gazette

Frankfort, IL. (ECWd) –

From among the court records available, Illinois Senator Michael E. Hastings has filed a civil case, in his private capacity, for discovery or to depose in Will County naming the City of Frankfort, Will County, and Jane Does as Defendants.

While Petitions are generally nothing to write about, this one appears to have been filed by an attorney in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office using the office, or the name of the office for his filing, which makes us wonder if the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office paid for the filing fee.

Which leads us to another question: Why would the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office be interested in assisting the filing of a Petition on behalf of a State Senator from Will County in his private capacity against a municipality who is also fighting us in Will County Circuit Court for their withholding of certain police records we had requested several months ago? Both involve the same Senator.

This Motion filed by Hastings seeks information in his attempts to identify the police officers or employees who had access to certain police reports, and who may have distributed those police reports to other people, including the media.

Within the Motion, Hasting alleges claims of Defamation, False Light Invasion of Privacy, and related torts from the publication of false statements of fact in a police report that the Frankfort Police Department prepared on or about June 20, 2021.

Just so we get this straight – Hastings claims he is wanting to sue the Frankfort Police Department for what their police officers wrote into a police report and their dissemination of that report. We doubt this goes anywhere…

Additionally, Hastings goes on to explain, in substantial detail, the contents of the “sealed” police reports, which we believe constitutes his waiver of any claim for having them sealed, and based on this new filing they need unsealed so the public will know what is happening within their court systems and with their elected state Senator.

The police report indicates Hasting’s wife complained of him being verbally abusive and that he battered her – both of which Hastings claims in this filing to be false. He follows this with claiming the police report was a false statement of fact and it was distributed to third parties.

Summonses were issued to the Village of Frankfort, Will County, and two unnamed individuals.

We received several copies of the police report in question, one copy was heavily redacted by the Frankfort Police Department, other copies we received anonymously were unredacted.

From among the unredacted copies, the police officer simply wrote what Hastings’ wife was informing them of – which can hardly be used to file a lawsuit against the police officer for simply writing down what he was told by the person who showed up to the police station to file a report.

Below are the accusations made against Hastings by his wife (they are going through a divorce) according to the report:

• Hastings was accused of a verbal altercation
• Hastings mouthed the words “bitch” and “whore” at her while filming her with the children present in the home
• While his wife was in the interview room, Hastings attempted to call her a few times
• Hastings treated his wife poorly for the past 8 months being emotionally and verbally abusive
• That he battered her, by placing her in a choke hold/neck restraint, and slammed her body into a door multiple times
• She did not call the police at the time because she feared for her safety
• She also didn’t report it because she didn’t want it all over the media since Hastings is a State Senator

More information will be published as it becomes available.

*This story was originally published by Edgar County Watchdogs. Read the original here.