Attorneys for former Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard say they will file an affidavit explaining she does not have records required as part of an ongoing lawsuit.
Henyard was required to appear in court Friday at the Daley Center in Chicago to produce documents requested last year by the nonprofit Edgar County Watchdogs that are public via the Freedom of Information Act. Cook County Judge Kate Moreland filed an order holding her in contempt May 23 for repeated violations of court orders.
Though Henyard was called to testify, Henyard’s attorney, Beau Brindley, told Moreland she would not take the stand due to an ongoing federal investigation into possible misconduct during her tenure as Dolton’s mayor. Brindley confirmed after the hearing he is representing Henyard in the federal investigation.
“She does not have these documents,” Brindley said. “The one document they’re asking for, she doesn’t remember what it is. She doesn’t possess it.”
The Edgar County Watchdogs sued Dolton in February 2024 after failing to receive documents requested the month prior. The lawsuit claims the groups made two separate requests Jan. 5, 2024, neither of which received a response from Henyard’s office.
Attorneys for the Edgar County Watchdogs said Friday the village helped fulfill the first request, copies of all credit card statements since Oct. 1, 2023. However, they still not received copy of a document Henyard showed at a January public meeting while stating trustees canceled the credit card, stating the document was proof.
“We don’t believe that someone can just burn a piece of paper or get rid of … the document, and the Watchdogs aren’t going to stop until they get it,” attorney Edward Coach Winehouse said after the hearing.
Judge Moreland affirmed Friday that Henyard would be fined $1,000 per day as of May 30 until she produced the records responsive to the group’s request or filed the affidavit. Brindley said the affidavit would be filed by Monday.
After the hearing, Brindley told the Daily Southtown the case represents a “pretty unfair focus on Mayor Henyard, who has been out of office for awhile now.”
“This is about one piece of paper at a board meeting that she had like a year ago, and they seem to suggest that she’s going to still have it,” Brindley said. “She doesn’t even know what it is, and the fact that they’ve gone to all this trouble and a contempt hearing and everything else is just silly.”
Edgar County Watchdogs claim in the lawsuit the only response to their Jan. 5 FOIA requests came from Village Clerk Alison Key, informing them the village administrator at the time, Keith Freeman, instructed staff not to reply to requests that she entered.
“Hopefully, you will get what you are requesting,” Key wrote the day the request was received.
Henyard’s tenure as mayor, which ended last month, showed a pattern of ignored or denied public records requests.
The Daily Southtown reported last year the Illinois attorney general’s office received more than 50 related complaints between January 2021 and April 2024 regarding ignored or denied FOIA requests. The attorney general’s office also received more than 30 similar complaints from Thornton Township from January 2022 and August 2024, when Henyard was supervisor.
The Daily Southtown sought records from Dolton in May 2023, and followed up again in August of that year. While the Freedom of Information Act requests were acknowledged as received, there was no response.
In May 2024, lawyers for the Daily Southtown sent a letter to Dolton officials, including Henyard, outlining the lack of response and requesting the village adhere to the law and turn over records. It too was ignored.
In February 2024, the attorney general’s office issued a binding opinion ordering Dolton to produce records requested by WGN. The village did not, and WGN eventually won a court ruling demanding the documents be turned over.
ostevens@chicagotribune.com
