Henry County Sheriff Office refuses to clear public record requests with attorney’s office

MT. PLEASANT — As news outlets and individuals recently began to make public record requests of multiple Henry County offices, the Henry County Sheriff’s Office informed the Henry County Attorney’s Office they would not seek their input on current requests.

Henry County Assistant Attorney Steven Giebelhausen informed the Board of Supervisor of this development at the Thursday, July 18 meeting. While Giebelhausen and Sheriff Rich McNamee refer to these record requests as FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, these are not federal requests, but public records for the county.

“There have been a couple recently involving the sheriff's office and we were informed by Sheriff McNamee he no longer wants any input from the county attorney on this,” Giebelhausen informed the Board of Supervisors. “In essence, the way I read it, he's going to act as his own attorney as far as deciding what records are released and what's not released. So, we just wanted to make you aware of that because there's potential risks to the county when we have a non-attorney deciding what gets disclosed and what doesn't. Also, I wanted to let you know that if the sheriff were to change his mind, we would be glad to work with him again, and review those documents with him. We will also be prepared if any liability arises from this situation.”

During the public comment segment of the meeting, McNamee responded to this statement and provided additional information about the nature of the public record requests.

“Why did I send a memo to the county attorney redacting my request for review materials or the FOIA requests that I've received?” McNamee started. “It's really simple. … The two FOIA requests pertain to the Wagler criminal case that my office investigated in ‘22 and ’23, the Brady-Giglio accusations against Deputy Carlos Lopez, the hiring of outside counsel to represent my office, me and Deputy Lopez in a conflict of interest pertaining to all between the county attorney's office in my office.”

McNamee went on to make claims that Henry County Attorney Darin Stater has a conflict of interest in the Brady-Giglio accusations, stated his opinion that Lopez should not be on the list, and told the Board of Supervisors the responsibility for deciding to pay outside counsel belonged to them.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com