by: Diane Benjamin
Rep Dwight Kay urges Commission to search the records of the tainted Quinn NRI Program
See Kay’s the letter here:
DK Letter to Committee (10 June 2014)
Quinn’s Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, billed by some as buying votes for the 2012 election, is under investigation by the US Attorney’s office and a panel of state representatives. Illinois Rep Dwight Kay enlisted a team to examine the documents and the report assembled by the Auditor General. I was part of this group. Below is a recap of what we found – a lot of information missing, especially emails.
We’ve been down this road before with the State of Illinois. The investigation continues.
Recap:
Illinois State Representative Dwight Kay kicked off the investigation into the Quinn Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, an anti-violence program by drafting the house resolution. He has been busy and has always stood his ground regardless of political pressure that the program mas mismanaged and potentially was corrupt.
We wonder if Kay had a crystal ball, considering Quinn staffers are under investigation by the US Attorney’s office, a Commission has been convened to look into the corruption and the Auditor General wrote a scathing audit report.
Kay convened his own investigative team and was able to obtain all of electronically stored materials from the Auditor General. He then tapped Garrett Discovery Inc an Illinois computer forensic and litigation support firm to review the materials and determine whether or not the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority complied with the request for all emails of certain individuals. The report authored by Andrew Garrett details how the production was most likely not complete and the potential to withhold documents was high considering Malcom Weems the Director of CMS was in charge of the collection of records. Weems had worked with the IVPA and was one of the subpoenaed.
Kay sent a letter to David Reis to share with the Commission along with Garrett’s report to urge them to consider finding a 3rd party to oversee a new search for records to ensure they have all of the materials prior to taking the depositions of the IVPA and Governor’s staff. The Commission met on July 9th to discuss Garrett’s report.
Can you say how big of a deal this is or are you required to keep your knowledge under wraps? Is this a potential for sending our third governor in a row to prison?
Big and yes. They aren’t hiding emails because they did nothing wrong. Garrett used to work for the state. He knows where the copies are and how to get them.