Socha's Revenge Porn Lawsuit: Roechner Got Rid Of His Phone

JOLIET, IL — Shortly after Joliet police officer Cassie Socha filed her revenge porn lawsuit in federal court in August 2018, then-Police Chief Al Roechner enlisted his department's information technology police officer, Phil Bergner, to remove the contents of Roechner's cell phone, according to recently filed documents in Socha's lawsuit.

Within weeks of Socha's lawsuit, "defendant Roechner learned that the Joliet Police Department had commissioned a forensic investigation of city issued computer devices, including cell phones, in the possession and control of officers in the investigations division, including Roechner himself, with the aid of Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory," Socha's lawyer, Hall Adams, outlined in recent court filings with U.S. District Court.

"Upon learning of the pending RCFL investigation, defendant Roechner directed defendant Bergner to dispose of at least one of defendant Roechner’s cell phones, which Bergner did," Adams states. "Bergner subsequently described these events to Joliet Police Department officer, Detective Shawn Stachelski, who made no formal report to any other Joliet Police Department officer about what she had learned from defendant Bergner."

In a pretrial exhibit submitted Aug. 13 by lawyers defending the city of Joliet, Socha sent her lawyer an email on March 3, 2020, stating in part that someone in the Joliet Police Department told her "in the days leading up to the FBI raid of the investigations office, Roechner went to Officer Phillip Bergner and asked him to 'clean his phone.' Bergner was the IT officer for the department and would have the knowledge of how to do such a thing. Bergner wasn't able to clean the phone, but he was able to give Roechner a new phone and that was the phone the FBI seized."

Socha's lawyer wants to amend his federal lawsuit to add Roechner, Bergner and current Joliet Police Detective Don McKinney as additional lawsuit defendants. John O'Driscoll, the lawyer defending Joliet's Police Department, argues that the federal judge should reject Socha's lawyer's attempt to amend their 2018 lawsuit seeking to add Roechner, Bergner and McKinney.

At the moment, U.S. District Judge Jorge L. Alonso in Chicago is weighing a flurry of legal filings from Socha's lawyer in Chicago and from attorney O'Driscoll, of Tressler LLP, the Bolingbrook law firm hired to defend the city of Joliet and its police department in Socha's lawsuit, which was filed in August 2018.

When reached for comment on the latest developments in Socha's lawsuit, Joliet Police Department spokesman Dwayne English told Joliet Patch that the department cannot comment on pending lawsuits.

O'Driscoll has asked the federal judge to reject the attempts by Socha's lawyer to amend her ongoing lawsuit seeking to add Roechner, McKinney and Bergner as codefendants. Her original lawsuit named the city of Joliet and Sgt. Ed Grizzle as defendants.

"First, the plaintiff’s motion is untimely," O'Driscoll argued on behalf of Joliet. "The alleged 'facts' upon which her purported claims against these proposed new parties are premised have been known to the plaintiff long before the present time. For example, plaintiff has known of information regarding Roechner’s alleged involvement in the events at issue since at least September 6, 2018, two weeks after plaintiff filed her original complaint in this matter.

"There is no excuse for waiting just short of three years to name Roechner as an individual defendant. As such, plaintiff’s motion to amend as to Roechner should be denied on that basis alone. Moreover, the plaintiff has had knowledge of the purported 'facts' alleged in her claims against McKinney, Roechner and Bergner since at least March 3, 2020 ... There is no justifiable reason that plaintiff has waited until now, one-year and four months after she first learned of this information, to amend her complaint to add these new parties and claims to this litigation when all of this 'new information' alleged in her proposed second amended complaint was known to her and her legal counsel since at least March 3, 2020."

Socha's lawsuit accuses her Joliet Police Department supervisors of illegally seizing her phone in May 2018 to embarrass and humiliate her by viewing her nude private images she kept on her phone. The nude images included her and her future husband, Joliet Police Officer Nick Crowley. Her iPhone was seized by Grizzle on May 17, 2018 during Crowley's criminal trial on charges of reckless discharge of a gun. Crowley's Will County bench trial ended with Judge Dan Kennedy issuing a not-guilty verdict to the dismay of the Joliet Police Department's upper administration.

Back in 2017, Crowley was charged by the Joliet Police Department with several crimes including reckless discharge of his gun. Joliet Patch previously reported that shortly after their return to Socha's place around 3 a.m., following a night of drinking at several Joliet area bars, a heated argument ensued and Crowley was accused of pulling out his loaded handgun and firing it into their ceiling. At the trial, Socha's rescue pit bull from Chicago was blamed for trying to bite his owner, prompting Crowley pull out the gun and threaten to kill the dog.

"Between 17 May 2018 and on or about 10 June 2018, Joliet Police Department personnel made approximately five copies of the data that had been extracted from plaintiff’s iPhone onto USB, 'zip' or 'thumb' drives and/or disk/DVD storage devices and at least one desktop, Roechner’s," Socha's lawyer contends.

"None of the copies of the data that were extracted from plaintiff’s iPhone were entered into evidence, secured or controlled in accordance with Joliet Police Department standing general orders relating to evidence and property management. Each was kept privately, outside of the Joliet Police Department’s normal or authorized evidence storage and handling procedures by individual officers, including defendants Grizzle and Roechner.

"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 humiliate plaintiff," Socha's lawyer states. "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 her husband Officer Nick Crowley, who is also clearly identifiable in these images. As such, the private images depicted conduct by and between consenting adults, with the adults depicted therein, plaintiff and Crowley, intended would remain private," Socha's lawyer argues.

Just last week, on Aug. 13, the lawyer at Tressler LLP filed his motion asking the federal judge to reject Socha's latest filing trying to add Roechner, McKinney and Bergner as co-defendants. O'Driscoll argues that "McKinney was one of the first witnesses deposed on April 28, 2021, three months before the close of discovery; Phillip Bergner gave a deposition on June 14, 2021, seven weeks before the close of discovery; and Alan Roechner gave a deposition on June 21, 2021, six weeks before the close of discovery. Plaintiff waited until the last day of fact discovery, July 30, 2021, to present her motion for leave to amend. Plaintiff’s dilatory conduct should not be rewarded and her failure to bring these new parties into the case in a timely fashion should not be allowed at this stage of the litigation in the interest of justice and fairness to the City of Joliet, Defendant Grizzle and the proposed new parties."

On the other hand, Socha's lawyer maintains he is within his right to add McKinney, Roechner and Bergner as new lawsuit co-defendants based on the information gleaned during some of the pretrial lawsuit depositions from this past spring and summer.

"At his deposition taken on 18 April 2021, McKinney admitted that he’d seen private images extracted from plaintiff’s iPhone and offered an explanation for having done so that strains credulity," Adams contends. "He also admitted that, upon seeing the images, he called them to the attention of at least one fellow officer for no evident law enforcement purpose.

"Similarly, at her deposition on 9 July 2021, Stachelski confirmed that Bergner admitted to her, at least that he had disposed of Roechner’s phone at Roechner’s direction made after Roechner became aware that the Joliet Police Department had commissioned a forensic investigation of City-issued computer devices, including phones, onto which the Private Images extracted from plaintiff’s iPhone might have been loaded. Roechner, it seems, saw the investigators coming for his own phone and ordered Bergner to dispose of it."

Adams argues that Bergner and Roechner both should have civil culpability in his client's federal lawsuit.

"Roechner directed Bergner to dispose of Roechner’s phone and Bergner did so at Roechner’s direction knowing that Roechner’s phone contained information, i.e., the private images, having potential relevance to plaintiff’s claims," Adams argued in late July. "Roechner’s and Bergner’s spoliation of this relevant evidence has and will impair plaintiff’s ability to prove her claims herein; plaintiff has thus been damaged as a proximate result of Roechner’s and Bergner’s intentional spoliation of this evidence."

In July, 2020, Joliet Patch reported that Socha's lawyer proposed a legal settlement of $950,000 with the city of Joliet. However, the Joliet City Council chose not to take action and that's why the lawsuit remains ongoing.

Back on Sept. 10, 2018, Joliet Patch produced an article related to Socha's lawsuit, headlined:"FBI Seizes Data From Joliet Police Administration."