Independent counsel to review allegation against Lake Forest policeman

Independent counsel to review allegation against Lake Forest policeman


BY LINDA BLASER

Last Modified: Dec 8, 2011 07:54PM

The Lake Forest City Council has appointed an independent counsel to review alleged inappropriate conversations the Lake Forest Police Department’s student resource officer had with a 22-year-old intern in the department in 2008.

Leigh Jeter, an attorney with Clark Baird Smith who specializes in harassment and workplace misconduct and who served as the former special assistant to the provost and director of the Sexual Harassment Prevention Office at Northwestern University, will conduct an independent investigation of the allegations. She will present her findings to the City Council in January.

Jeter’s findings “will form the basis for any charges that may be brought before the BFPC,” Mayor James Cowhey said.

Jeter — who is not a Lake Forest or Lake Bluff resident — will be paid between $10,000 and $20,000, a city spokeswoman said.

“Let me reiterate that the city of Lake Forest and police department take any suggestion of employee misconduct very seriously,” Cowhey said. “The city has established extremely high standards for its employees that place heavy emphasis on our core values of integrity, respect, trust and excellence.”

City Attorney Vic Filippini described Jeter’s appointment as “the important next step” in the investigation the city started Nov. 21 when it directed an investigation into the circumstances surrounding allegations of inappropriate conversations involving Student Resource Officer Jeff Sulkin to an unidentified 22-year-old Lake Forest College student in 2008 while she was serving an internship with the Lake Forest Police Department.

The same woman filed a police report in 2009 alleging harassment by former Deer Path Middle School Principal John Steinert. He pleaded guilty that year and resigned last month when the full contents of the police report came to light.

“Having an independent investigator...will allow the process to move forward to its next and ultimate logical conclusion. What that conclusion will be is still an unknown. That’s what the investigation is attempting to identify,” Filippini said.

When Jeter makes her report to the City Council next month, “the Council will then make a determination if charges should be filed against the SRO or anyone else,” Filippini said.

The city’s Board of Fire and Police Commissioners “will hold then a trial, for all practical purposes, extending due process rights to all parties involved. Any determination of the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners will be appealable to the courts, and that will be the end of the process as far as the city is concerned,” Filippini said.

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