Revenge Porn Joliet Police Lawsuit: $950,000 Settlement?

JOLIET, IL — In August 2018, less than two weeks after Police Chief Brian Benton announced his retirement, Officer Cassie Socha filed a federal lawsuit against the Joliet Police Department. She accused a number of upper-level police supervisors of engaging in a revenge porn scheme to embarrass and humiliate her by illegally seizing her private cell phone.

Now, Joliet Patch has learned, the Joliet City Council and its legal counsel have held multiple closed -door sessions to consider the pros and cons of reaching an out-of-court settlement with Socha and her lawyer, Hall Adams of Chicago.

The plaintiffs are seeking a settlement of about $950,000, Patch has been told. So far, Joliet's elected officials have not accepted or rejected the settlement offer.

On Friday, Socha's lawyer told Joliet Patch's editor he would not discuss any specifics about the possible settlement proposals with the city of Joliet. However, Adams said he expects to know by the end of this month whether the city of Joliet will agree to a settlement.

"We are just getting started with the discovery process," Adams told Joliet Patch on Friday. "We're still very confident that we will prove all the allegations."

In June, the federal judge presiding over Socha's lawsuit against the city of Joliet gave lawyers on both sides about 45 days to try to reach a settlement. If a settlement is not reached, the lawyers will move forward with the pre-trial discovery, including the anticipated depositions of several members of Joliet's police department.

The case would proceed toward a jury trial.

In May 2018, Socha was called by a special prosecutor to testify at the criminal trial of her future husband, Joliet Police Officer Nick Crowley. The previous summer, Crowley and Socha got into an argument inside their Joliet townhouse and Crowley fired his gun through the ceiling.

The Joliet Police administration did not seek an outside police agency's help. Rather, Benton and his supervisors filed several criminal charges against Crowley, including domestic battery.

But at Crowley's bench trial before Will County Judge Dan Kennedy, Socha's testimony was more helpful to Crowley than the Joliet police supervisors trying to convict him. Crowley was found not guilty of all the criminal charges, including reckless discharge of a gun.

Socha and her lawyer contend that the Joliet police administration, in an act of revenge, obtained an illegal search warrant on May 18, 2018, to let them seize Socha's private iPhone.

Sources have told Patch that at least two Will County judges refused to sign Joliet Police Sgt. Ed Grizzle's search warrant. However, a third judge, Sarah Jones, signed off on Grizzle's search warrant, which sought "evidence of the offense of harassment via electronic communications, intimidation," court records show.

And "although Grizzle and City were unable to find evidence of any criminal offense on plaintiff's iPhone, they succeeded in finding private images with which to embarrass and to humiliate plaintiff. Specifically, they found numerous private, still and or video-graphic images that clearly depict plaintiff while nude and/or while engaged in sex acts with Crowley, who is also clearly identifiable in these images," Adams argues in Socha's federal lawsuit.

"As such, the private images depicted conduct by and between consenting adults ... plaintiff and Crowley intended would remain private."

According to Socha's lawsuit, the upper police administration orchestrated the "re-publication" and "re-recording" of private photographic and video images that were stored on her phone.

On Friday, Socha's lawyer told Joliet Patch that the criminal warrant obtained by the Joliet Police Department supervisors never led to any criminal charges against his client.

Furthermore, Socha never received any internal disciplinary measures stemming from the case, now, 26 months later.

"She has not been charged with anything, and she has not been disciplined for any reason at all," Adams told Joliet Patch.

The August 2018 federal lawsuit names Grizzle and up to 20 members of the Joliet Police Department, who, at the moment, are only identified in federal court filings as John Does.

"A number of officers and other department personnel viewed these images and republished them," Adams told Patch. "They were showing them to other people, and this included some high-level people."

At the time of the search warrant, Benton was chief and Al Roechner was deputy chief of criminal investigations. When Benton announced his retirement, Roechner was promoted to interim chief. The Joliet City Council then named Roechner permanent chief of police in December 2018.

If the city of Joliet rejects the settlement offer, Socha and her lawyer may file supporting court documents in the coming months, revealing the identities of several Joliet police officials suspected of participating in the 2018 revenge porn scheme against Socha.