Joliet cop seeks to sue former chief in revenge porn lawsuit

A Joliet police officer wants to add more defendants to her revenge porn lawsuit, including the former police chief whom she accused of spoiling potentially relevant evidence of her claims.

On Thursday, Officer Cassandra Socha’s attorney, Hall Adams, asked a judge to allow the amending of her 2018 lawsuit, which alleged that Detective Edward Grizzle “trawled” her cellphone while looking for evidence related to the trial of her fiancé, Officer Nicholas Crowley.

Socha’s lawsuit alleged “private, still and/or video-graphic images” of her and Crowley engaged in sex acts were discovered in the search and shared with other officers.

Adams wants to add former Joliet Police Chief Al Roechner, Detective Donald McKinney and former officer Phillip Bergner as defendants to the case.

The proposed amended lawsuit claims Roechner directed Bergner to dispose of his phone and that Bergner did so “knowing that Roechner’s phone contained information [i.e., the private images] having potential relevance” to Socha’s claims.

“Roechner’s and Bergner’s spoliation of this relevant evidence has and will impair plaintiff’s ability to prove her claims herein; plaintiff has thus been damaged as a proximate result of Roechner’s and Bergner’s intentional spoliation of this evidence,” the lawsuit said.

Roechner declined to comment, and Adams declined to comment because of a protective order regarding discovery material. Attorneys for the City of Joliet have not yet responded to Adams’ motion in court.

Adams’ motion cites McKinney admitting in a deposition that he saw the private images extracted from Socha’s seized iPhone.

“He also admitted that, upon seeing the images, he called them to the attention of at least one fellow officer for no evident law enforcement purpose,” Adams said.

Adams’ motion said Detective Shawn Stachelski confirmed Bergner “admitted [to her at least]” that Bergner disposed of Roechner’s phone at his direction after Roechner was aware of a forensic investigation of city-issued electronic devices, which might have contained Socha’s private images.

“Roechner, it seems, saw the investigators coming for his own phone and ordered Bergner to dispose of it,” Adams said.

Socha’s proposed amended lawsuit accuses police personnel of making about five copies of data extracted from her iPhone onto USB drives “and/or disk/DVD storage devices and at least one desktop, Roechner’s.”

The lawsuit alleges none of the copies were properly entered into evidence, secured or controlled but instead kept privately by other officers, including Grizzle and Roechner.

Previously, when Grizzle investigated an allegation that Socha harassed a witness during Crowley’s trial, Socha has not been charged with any crimes in connection with the allegation.

An investigation began when Grizzle was contacted on May 16, 2018, by Lorinda Lamken, who unsuccessfully prosecuted Crowley. Lamken communicated to Grizzle her concerns regarding a text message that Maria Gatlin received from Socha, police reports said. Gatlin, Socha’s former friend, had testified at Crowley’s trial.

Socha’s lawsuit accuses Grizzle and the City of Joliet of seizing on the text message to “settle a score” over Crowley’s acquittal at trial.

Socha reportedly sent a message to Gatlin that accused her of various crimes and also said, “You’re a (expletive) scam and a joke,” police reports said.

Inspector General Chris Regis interviewed Grizzle about the investigation of Socha’s phone, according to transcripts released in Socha’s case. Her attorneys published them as exhibits to argue for access to Regis’ investigative records.

The transcripts show Grizzle told Regis after he obtained a search warrant for Socha’s phone and met with Socha, that she was upset and said, “This (expletive) is going to look at my nude photos.”

“At that point, we advised her that we were only doing what the scope of the search warrant was,” Grizzle said.

Grizzle told Regis the contents of her phone eventually were extracted and stored on a flash drive that was kept in the office of Roechner, who was deputy chief of investigations before former City Manager Marty Shanahan appointed him as chief. Grizzle said a copy was given to former Deputy Police Chief Marc Reid as he was told an internal investigation could follow.

Grizzle denied seeing any pictures of Socha nude or videos of her in a sexual situation, according to the transcripts.