A Cook County judge granted former Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau a partial win in an ongoing lawsuit brought by the village against him.
Judge Kate Moreland dismissed the village’s requests Dec. 12 to limit Pekau’s speech in relation to confidential documents the village claims Pekau brought with him after he lost his bid for reelection to Mayor Jim Dodge, and left office in May. She also struck the village’s request for injunctive relief.
Moreland in August granted the village a temporary restraining order barring Pekau from publishing “future statements disclosing the village’s attorney-client privileged communications and confidential non-public information contained in village personnel files,” and ordering he remove any publications of such information.
That temporary restraining order is still in place, and the village’s attorneys will relitigate the issue of prior restraint of Pekau’s speech, Dodge said Thursday.
“The judge told our lawyers to be a bit more specific on one of the issues that we brought up, which is what they’re working on,” Dodge said. “We’re still pretty comfortable that this is going to prevail — you can’t release confidential information of the village that your received while you were mayor.”
Moreland denied Pekau’s motions to dismiss the complaint and to strike any references to his retention of confidential information and his obligation to destroy or return those records.
Pekau on Thursday said the lawsuit overall represents an effort to infringe on his freedom of speech and intimidate him into silence. In a social media post Wednesday, he claimed Moreland dismissed “six of the village’s seven claims for relief,” which Dodge said was false.
“Ultimately, they don’t like someone calling them out,” Pekau said.
The former mayor said there is no law preventing him from holding onto copies of documents.
“If there’s something they think they don’t have that I do, I’d be more than happy to give them a copy of it,” Pekau said. “They haven’t identified it.”
Dodge said the lawsuit “has always and only been about protecting confidential village information,” and Pekau’s social media and blog posts have threatened other of the village’s ongoing lawsuits.
“This is just a former politician starving for attention,” Dodge said.
The village’s complaint filed July 29 states that after leaving office, Pekau held onto village documents that include personnel records containing confidential information and that he “intentionally published and circulated” that information. The confidential information in question includes “documentation divulging privileged attorney-client information” and “litigation case assessments and strategy,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit was filed six days after the village sent Pekau a cease-and-desist letter demanding he return written records and destroy their electronic forms. Pekau “publicly represented that he intends to continue to disclose the village’s confidential information,” according to the complaint.
Pekau, in an affidavit filed by attorneys Aug. 4, said at the end of his term he turned over all village property in accordance with state law and did not disclosed information “that was not already publicly available or would not have been available to the public under Illinois’ access laws.”
He said he runs a political newsletter that discusses village business but does not disclose confidential information and, since leaving office, has not engaged in conversation with litigants involved in pending lawsuits or stated he will release confidential information.
“The purpose of my newsletter is to create open dialogue about community issues and to express views on what is best for our community,” the affidavit said.
The next hearing in the case is at 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 20 in Room 2302 of the Daley Center, 50 W. Washington St., Chicago.
ostevens@chicagotribune.com
