According to testimony from a forensic expert, thousands of web searches for pornography were discovered on four computers used by the Country Club Hills Fire Department.

Andrew Garrett, who conducted the forensic imaging on January 26 on behalf of Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki—a female firefighter involved in a lawsuit against the department—testified last month about the presence of explicit material on the devices.

"There are thousands of web searches for pornography. It's all over the place," Garrett said during his testimony on February 8, as reported in court transcripts. "It looks like they wiped the hard drives and reloaded them. I gave [Dana Kurtz, Lewis-Bystrzycki’s attorney] three dates when that was completed."

However, once the computers were reconnected, the servers pushed down user profiles that included remnants of the previous web history, including searches for adult content.

Lewis-Bystrzycki, who has been with the department since 1998, claims she faced sexual harassment, a hostile work environment, gender discrimination during a promotion, retaliation for reporting misconduct, and regular exposure to pornography at the fire station.

On August 31, 2016, after determining that a search of the department’s computers wasn’t a fishing expedition, a judge approved a motion to conduct a forensic examination of the devices.

The examination took nearly five months to happen, and only after Judge Lynn Egan imposed sanctions on the city for failing to comply with the court order. The city was ordered to pay for the forensic expert's time and expenses as part of the penalty.

After a watchdog website reported on the sanctions, but before the findings were made public in court, the city’s attorneys filed an emergency motion for a protective order to limit media access to the case details.

The city argued that the gag order was necessary to prevent “irreparable, serious, and imminent threats to the Defendants’ rights to a fair trial,” according to court filings.

“Based on past patterns, the plaintiff—through her counsel—is expected to attempt to unfairly influence the jury pool,” the city claimed, citing a 2015 FOX 32 report and a recent blog post from the watchdog site.

Country Club Hills and its legal team did not respond to requests for comment regarding the gag order or the allegations in Kurtz’s response that the city had destroyed evidence and was in contempt of court, as well as claims that firefighters regularly viewed pornography at the station.

The city also asked the judge to allow it to filter out any irrelevant data found on the computers before sharing it with Kurtz and Lewis-Bystrzycki, fearing it could be used in a smear campaign against the department.

Kurtz responded by arguing that the city’s claims lacked factual basis and that the request for a gag order should be denied outright. She stated that the media was simply reporting on publicly available court documents and not leaking information herself.

In her response, she urged the city to focus on its own conduct rather than on a previous court reprimand she received in an unrelated case. “Which,” she wrote, “has led to a default judgment being entered against them, forced them to pay plaintiffs' attorneys’ fees for not responding timely, and resulted in multiple motions to compel and sanctions being granted.”

Kurtz also accused the city of deliberately destroying evidence and committing spoliation.

Despite the seriousness of these allegations, experienced Chicago trial lawyer Dan Kirschner believes it's unlikely the case will be investigated by authorities. Instead, he suggests bringing the issue to the court and requesting sanctions, which could include jury instructions, striking pleadings, or even a default judgment.

Kurtz indicated in her Feb. 15 response that she plans to file motions for spoliation and contempt once Garrett completes his report and shares it with her.

A hearing on the city’s protective order is scheduled for late next month.

Thanks, Dan

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