Lake County cop investigation raises questions
Former lieutenant linked to sex with underage boy by informant; authorities chose not to seek search warrant to investigate
June 25, 2013|By David Heinzmann and Dan Hinkel, Chicago Tribune reporters
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Eight months after Lake County authorities learned of allegations that one of their own officers had sex with an underage boy he met online, their investigation has been stymied amid questionable decisions, the Tribune has learned.
Investigators acknowledged they have not taken steps that experts said would be fundamental to such a case — including seeking a warrant to search the officer's personal computers. Prosecutors also have not acted on evidence they have that allegedly shows the former officer misused a state- and federally funded crime database to search for information about the boy.
State's Attorney Mike Nerheim said he doesn't believe he has the evidence needed to get a search warrant for the computers or to file sexual abuse charges against Rick White, a former lieutenant with the sheriff's office.
White specialized in netting online sexual predators in the years before a young man alleged to investigators that he was 15 or 16 when he met the officer on a gay dating site and had multiple sexual encounters, Nerheim and his assistants said.
When asked last week about the alleged misuse of the Law Enforcement Agencies Data System, Nerheim said he was still considering charges.
Prosecutors say they believe they have no evidence of a sex crime involving a minor because the youth told investigators that he informed White he was of age. The officer also told authorities he thought the teen, who attended the same high school as White's daughters, was of age, Nerheim said.
For years, the Lake County state's attorney's office has attracted scrutiny by repeatedly prosecuting the wrong men in major cases, including sex crimes against children. The office has been haunted by accusations of overzealous and inept prosecution in cases that crumbled under the weight of DNA evidence that was disregarded by former State's Attorney Michael Waller. In this case, experts say actions, overseen first by Waller and now by Nerheim, raise questions about authorities' willingness to vigorously investigate one of their own.
Along with not seeking a search warrant, prosecutors chose to handle the investigation themselves rather than seek help from an outside agency. That decision meant prosecutors were investigating a high-ranking officer who had been key to their own efforts to stop sex offenders.
Prosecutors also initially rebuffed information that would have led them to White. During the 2012 prosecution of two pedophiles, one suspect's lawyer approached an assistant state's attorney with information about an unnamed officer in hopes of making a deal for leniency, Nerheim said. The prosecutor spurned the offer and did not get the information. After he was convicted, the man gave investigators the tip anyway and it led to White and the underage teen, prosecutors said.
White, 52, was placed on paid leave in October and retired in December, writing in a letter to the sheriff's office that he wanted to spend more time at his part-time home in Florida. He has not been charged with a crime. The Tribune has sought to discuss the investigation with him, but he has not responded to inquiries from the newspaper. His attorney, Doug Roberts, would not discuss details of the investigation but said White is well-regarded in Lake County's legal and law enforcement community.
"I think everyone who's worked with him wishes him well," Roberts said. "He's a great person."
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