Appellate court upholds dismissal of Kendall County state’s attorney from lawsuit

An appellate court has upheld a judge’s decision to dismiss Kendall County State’s Attorney Eric Weis from a lawsuit regarding one of his former employees.

Kendall County First Assistant State’s Attorney Mark Shlifka resigned in April 2023 amid allegations that between March 2022 and March 2023 he had been involved in an improper romantic relationship with a Kendall County woman who had been the complaining witness and victim in two domestic battery cases and recently the defendant in a case of driving under the influence.

The cases were being prosecuted by the Kendall County State’s Attorney’s Office, and Shlifka was aware of the woman’s involvement in them, according to a lawsuit she filed against Shlifka and Weis.

In a Dec. 2 opinion, an appellate court upheld DeKalb County Chief Judge Bradley Waller’s previous ruling to dismiss Weis from the lawsuit that alleged he knew Shlifka had been involved in an improper physical relationship with the woman.

“The facts as alleged in [the] plaintiff’s amended complaint demonstrate at most that Weis should have known that there was an inappropriate relationship between Shlifka and [the] plaintiff,” according to the opinion. “This does not amount to an allegation of knowledge that gender-related violence was occurring [or was even foreseeable], nor does it constitute a factual allegation that Weis acted in any way to encourage or assist such violence.”

The American Bar Association has rules prohibiting a prosecutor from engaging in any inappropriate personal relationship with any victim or other witness.

In an amended lawsuit before Waller, the woman claimed that Weis saw her and Shlifka together on at least two occasions “and knew the plaintiff by sight, in this small community, to be a defendant in a criminal case pending in Kendall County.”

“Defendant Weis remained silent, and his silence should be viewed as approval and acceptance of Shlifka’s inappropriate relationship with the plaintiff,” according to the lawsuit.

The appellate court in its ruling said there was nothing about the interactions allegedly observed by Weis that should have put him on notice that Shlifka had sexually assaulted the plaintiff.

“Nor were there any allegations that acts of violence or other misconduct occurred where Weis could have observed or learned of them,” according to the ruling. “Without more, the mere allegation that a state’s attorney/supervisor observed his assistant state’s attorney/employee in public twice with a female criminal defendant [who was also a complaining witness in another matter] is insufficient to establish that an act of sexual assault or battery by that prosecutor was foreseeable.”

A complaint against Shlifka also is before the hearing board of the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission. Shlifka apologized to his colleagues in an email the day he resigned, records show.

“I apologize to each and every one of you for letting you, the office, and all that we stand for, down,” Shlifka wrote in an email obtained in response to an Illinois Freedom of Information Act request.

The woman filed the lawsuit against Shlifka and Weis in April 2023. The suit seeks more than $50,000 in compensatory damages from Shlifka.

A status hearing on the woman’s lawsuit against Shlifka is set for 9 a.m. Jan. 9 in front of Waller.