MARION—A meth arrest kept quiet throughout the month of November exploded all over print and online nearly a month after it happened, following a very public meltdown of Marion’s chief of police over a headline error.
And now, Marion’s police department has been subjected to very pointed Freedom of Information Act requests regarding internet usage that may hearken back to the days of at least a couple of their officers cavorting with badge bunny Brittney Lane…and chief John Eibeck’s possible association with either covering up or facilitating said cavorting.
Waterbury’s arrest obscured somewhat
Disclosure learned that on November 15, 2013, a meth bust had occurred which involved one Steven C. Waterbury.
Waterbury, 61, of Marion, was not reported to have been arrested and charged in connection with the incident—which is reported to have taken place at his home in the 700 block of Garfield Street in Marion—until December 10, however, for whatever reason.
Williamson County sources advise that he was actually arrested at the time of the meth bust; there has been no explanation for the delay in reporting the incident by authorities.
The charge was a single count of Use of a Vehicle, Structure or Property to Manufacture Meth, in this case, Waterbury’s home and/or garage.
Waterbury is well-known across Williamson County, as both a former major league ballplayer as well as a former cop.
Waterbury came to play for the St. Louis Cardinals in September 1976 for about a season (according to available baseball stats), gaining fame as a “mean fastball” pitcher with a clocked speed of 99 mph on throws. He was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in June 1977, was released from Philadelphia in 1979, and in January of that year was signed by the Chicago Cubs, at which time his ball career basically fell into obscurity.
The son of a local osteopathic physician and the owner of a respected dress boutique in Marion, Waterbury is reported by friends to have had a problem early on accessing his father’s supply of meds to augment a habit he was developing at the time.
Space-saving move pisses off chief
At the time of the report of the arrest (three weeks AFTER), Waterbury was reported to Disclosure by Marion sources as a “police officer” and Disclosure made a very brief report on its website on the matter, entitling the online article “Marion cop arrested on meth charge” with the lead stating “In a little-covered case out of Williamson County, a former Marion police officer has been hemmed up on a meth charge.”
It is typical practice to shorten a headline in the manner this one was, as the lead clarified the “former” police officer, as a space-saving move for limited-width website columns such as the one Disclosure’s popular site utilizes.
The piece also clearly stated that Disclosure was unfamiliar with Waterbury and his “former” status within the Marion PD, and stated that the matter would be examined in the upcoming print version.
The piece was posted on a busy news day at 2:27 p.m. and online staff moved on to other projects.
Correction occurs right away
At 3:49 p.m. that same day, Marion police chief John Eibeck submitted this email:
“Former Officer Steven C. Waterbury left his employment with the Marion Police Department in 1990 or possibly 1991 on a disability pension. Since accuracy is important to a good news story, I thought I would attach a pic of the patch that was in use over 2 decades ago when Waterbury was still employed here. Additionally, the investigation and arrest was performed by the Southern Illinois Enforcement Group (S.I.E.G.), our local drug task force.”
Believing Eibeck to be providing information that the piece clearly stated was being sought, Disclosure staff returned the email with “Thank you. That’s all the material we had on it. I do appreciate your assistance with this!” at 4:20 p.m.
At 4:58 p.m., Eibeck wrote “Not a problem. I just did not appreciate that fact that the headline made it appear that he was a current officer in my department, even though the teaser acknowledged he was a ‘former’ officer. I would appreciate having that corrected.”
At 5:03 p.m., Disclosure staff advised, “Actually, when it was first put up, our correspondent hadn’t clarified that. I certainly can go in and fix it to properly reflect the accurate situation. Can’t do anything to change it on Facebook, though.”
At 5:14 p.m., Eibeck responded, “I appreciate that, although FB should be an even easier fix…delete and repost the corrected article. Thank you for your assistance.”
Disclosure neither responded to that email, nor did as “advised” by Eibeck, since the piece had already fallen below other breaking articles, and in the past, re-posting has caused significant problems for readers, so admin opted to let it stand on its own.
Little did staff know that Eibeck was about to launch a campaign of attempted disparagement on the paper’s Facebook page, which turned out to be all the more reason to not “delete and repost.”
Thin skin for such a fat guy….
Five minutes after his last message to staff in an email, Eibeck, whose skin is apparently quite thin given the job with which he’s tasked, posted “Waterbury hasn’t been a Marion police officer (or any other type of cop) for nearly 23 years. So sorry to disappoint the cop haters,” this in response to many who were taking the opportunity to voice their disgust that any officer, former or current, would have been involved in the manufacture of meth.
At 5:32, Eibeck posted the link to the article which showed the word “Former” in front of “Marion cop” as staff had corrected almost two hours prior (4:03 p.m., to be precise, 14 minutes after Eibeck’s initial email).
But he didn’t stop there, and not only kept haranguing staff on Facebook about the piece (which had long been corrected) for several hours, but recruited others among his “friends” to come to the page and harangue, as well…all of them overlooking the fact that the headline had been corrected after only a short time, as well as griping on his own page that while the headline had been corrected, he was of the opinion that Disclosure “had yet to correct the Facebook post”….this after having it explained to him that it wasn’t going to happen.
The guy who demands ‘accuracy’ gets it wrong
Eibeck’s meltdown continued from there…and really intensified when Angela Howser, tasked with delivering the audio version of headlines that night, mentioned it in the Nightly NewsCap in a light-hearted jab at the chief’s obvious sensitive spot over Waterbury.
Obviously having listened (but not too closely) to the NewsCap, Eibeck ranted on his Facebook page:
“Thanks everyone for your support and comments regarding the factually lacking Disclosure ‘news’ article regarding the arrest of a (long, long ago) former Marion Police Officer. For those who went to the Disclosure FB page and called them out for their poor ‘journalism’; kudos! They got spanked so much that Angela Howser personally targeted me during her nightly news wrap up. If you haven’t heard it, it was funny. At least she did pronounce my last name right, making them 1 for 3, I suppose. It is just hypocritical on their part how they can slam pretty much anyone they want to but if you point out an error (in this case a HUGE error) to them and try to get them to correct it, you are ‘harassing’ them. Yes, that was her words and it sounded like her blood pressure went high enough that she was about to pop a vessel in her head. Oh yeah, and she would like us all to “STFU”. Yeah, okay…….lmao!! Thanks, again!”
(In actuality, Howser advised that Disclosure wasn’t in the business of having cops dictate how to run a website and Facebook page like other media in the area is, and that if he or anyone else wished to be employed by Disclosure, submit an application or shut the hell up…but Eibeck himself apparently isn’t too concerned with accuracy when he’s ragging.)
At last check, the post had more than 80 “likes,” which might have accounted for that NewsCap being one of the most popular Disclosure has ever produced; so if nothing else, Eibeck was proving to be good for website clicks, a moneymaking proposition if ever there was one.
FOIA for electronic records
The post on his own Facebook page appeared around noon on the 11th.
Disclosure wasn’t advised of that post until early on the morning of the 12th.
Intrigued by the time-stamp on the post, Disclosure promptly created a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA), and submitted it to the city of Marion at 9:04 a.m.
In that request, Disclosure was seeking “IP/router numbers for all computers with internet access at Marion Police Department; total number of hours logged on all IPs for past 30 days (November 12-December 12, 2013); Internet site usage log for all computers at Marion Police Department past 30 days.”
Illinois FOIA laws updated some years ago to include such information, since all computers in possession of a taxpayer-supported body are considered public property and all electronic correspondence conducted on the public’s property is considered public and available through FOIA.
This FOIA will be the first of many as the investigation continues.
Did he think it would work on Disclosure the way it worked on topix?
Interestingly, it’s been reported that it was Eibeck, using police computers/devices and exerting his authority as a police chief, who was ensuring information about officer Jessie Thompson was deleted as soon as it appeared on the vile topix.com website.
Regular readers will recall that Thompson was one of at least two Marion police officers who was having a relationship—while married—with badge bunny Brittney Lane over the past couple of years.
An individual in possession of Lane’s email, phone and text correspondence was able to find photos of the other (now former) officer, Dusty Lingle, posing with the badge bunny in his own home, and submitted the photos for Disclosure to use as part of its ongoing investigation into alleged cocaine use and prostitution involving not only Lane, but other women in and around Saline and Williamson counties, as it involves police officers and other taxpayer-supported figures.
When the information came up about Thompson, who was hired because of who he was related to (former water department manager Linda Heyde; he is her son-in-law), a wide assortment of opinions and tidbits of information surfaced on topix…but each time, was quickly disappearing almost as fast as it appeared.
Disclosure was advised that it was being said Eibeck was contacting topix and ordering them to shut down any thread with Thompson’s name appearing, so as to not bring reproach upon the department, which had already suffered under Lingle, as he was not only cavorting with Lane, but had been under investigation for the beating of a restrained suspect in the jail earlier in the year.
The unspoken assertion was that Eibeck was utilizing taxpayer-supported equipment, email, phones, etc., in order to accomplish the sweeping of Thompson’s indiscretions under the rug.
Questions about the badge bunny
As a result of this, the timing of Eibeck’s comments all over Facebook during his apparent meltdown, and the receipt of FOIA, Angela Howser opted to make direct contact with the chief.
At 1:17 p.m. Dec. 12 she submitted the following via email:
“Good afternoon chief.
“Since you’re feeling so chatty on Facebook, and since your material about Waterbury just landed you on page 1 instead of relegating his meth bust to an obscure location between pages 9 and 18, I thought I might run a few questions past you prior to deadline:
“How many of your officers were/are having a relationship with Brittney Lane?
“What was your part in ensuring cover up, if any was done at all?
“Have you ever had any kind of relationship, ongoing or brief, with Ms. Lane?
“Can you explain why your cell number is in her cell phone contact list?
“Can you explain the reports that your office was responsible for pulling comments off the topix forum as they pertain to your officers and their relationships with Ms. Lane?
“Just want to make sure we have ALL the facts straight and give you a chance to say something about it, since this has been an ongoing investigation of ours that isn’t over by a long shot, and of course with your defensiveness there always exists the possibility that you’ll say we didn’t contact you. As such, we intend to not only screenshoot this missive, but of course any response you give…and as you’ve probably been made aware by now, we’re looking into internet use there at the PD.
“Have a great day.”
As of press time, there’s been no response either from the city regarding the FOIA (response due Thursday, December 19); nor from Eibeck.
And…back to ol Steve
Waterbury, in the meantime, remained in jail as of press time and a motion to reduce bail was set for him to be heard in front of Judge Speroni on Dec. 16 (print date for this issue).
Waterbury has, in the past couple of years, gone through a divorce, a mortgage foreclosure, and a small claims suit, resulting in the loss of pretty much all of them (the foreclosure is still pending).
Now, he’s being utilized as a soapbox for a local police chief to throw his ever-amassing weight around in an effort to diss the only media outlet that tells the truth about what goes on in Marion.
But as long as Eibeck continues to whine, word continues to get out that there’s at least one media that’s not afraid of the way things work in Marion and will call their thin-skinned blusterers on it when they whine.