Illinois State Police Investigator Rick White, pictured here at the Richland County courthouse, has been telling people in Wayne, White and Richland counties that his testimony a year ago in February has prompted an investigation by state and local authorities.
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS—The Illinois State Police investigator whose name is becoming synonymous with botched cases is telling people in three counties that he’s under investigation for perjury.
This information comes on the heels of what White is apparently perceiving as a ‘victory’ over one of the two men who have taken him to the federal court venue over alleged civil rights violations.
But it also comes on the heels of what amounts to White’s losses in the state court system in two White County cases, both of them ending in mistrial, with one defendant suffering White’s bad temper so badly it resulted in loss of his medical license after White encouraged women to lie in order to get that license removed.
Add to this the fact that a young Wayne County man is still locked up over assertions that White obtained a sex assault confession from him when he didn’t; that White will probably be the investigator in charge of a case in Fairfield that was breaking on deadline; and that the Illinois State Police can be said to have their hands full with the guy who manages to get others in his field in trouble for talking to the media, but he himself skirts such trouble at every turn…and a full-fledged war of opinion has broken out over whether Rick White is worth the liability he’s apparently turning in to.
Internal affairs watches testimony
Sources in Wayne, White and Richland counties have all advised Disclosure that White is griping about “being under investigation for perjury.”
However, those same sources either are unaware of what he’s referring to, or won’t say, if indeed they do know.
It was at first believed that the matter had to do with the recent Philip Lowery child sex abuse case in White County (covered in the April-May 2014 edition of Disclosure) in which White’s testimony, according to jurors, was what split the jury 6-6 when it came time for deliberations, and so hopelessly deadlocked the decision that a mistrial was called…the nearly-identical situation jurors in the Dr. Jogendra Chhabra case found themselves in late February 2013, when the doctor was faced with a sex charge himself.
In the Lowery case, Disclosure learned the identities of the two suited-up individuals who were in the courtroom for the portion where White testified as to his interview with the defendant, said individuals at whom White kept glancing during testimony and was visibly nervous at their presence.
Those two turned out to be Barbie Bradie and Scott Gaffner of ISP Internal Affairs, who were in the courtroom solely to listen to White’s testimony.
Beyond that, it’s not clear what the two were looking for.
However, Gaffner happened to be present during the hearings scheduled for White after a Stalking/No-Contact Order (aka Order of Protection, heretofore referred to as OP) was petitioned for by former Illinois State Police investigator Kelly Henby in February 2013.
No allegations of perjury have arisen out of Lowery’s case, however…yet.
Judge’s assertions
In the Hinkle federal case, perjury doesn’t appear to have been an issue, so as regards that one being a second possibility, it’s not viable.
The judge in that federal case issued a decision in the matter May 7, 2014, on a motion for summary judgment as filed by the two Hinkle named as violating his civil rights, White and an immediate supervisor, Tom Olivario.
Hinkle’s allegations were that he was targeted by the two over false accusations of child molestation, and as a result, his ability to find gainful employment upon giving up his office as sheriff in December 2010 was affected by White running his mouth over the allegations…by which time the girl, Hinkle’s own stepdaughter, had already recanted and the matter was over and done with, a case of an ill-tempered child who was angry with her stepfather for not letting her run around doing what she wanted at age 15, and trying to go live with her more lenient father in Charleston…the latter of which she ultimately succeeded in doing.
In the judge’s ruling, he recounted the situation as it unfolded from the initial allegation during the summer of 2010 through to the February 2012 federal filing…and in the process, rendered a rather stinging opinion of the unprofessional conduct displayed by White.
“In several interviews, (Hinkle) denied his stepdaughter’s charges,” U.S. District Judge Michael J. Reagan wrote in his decision. “The stepdaughter recanted her account multiple times, and an Illinois prosecutor declined to press charges against (Hinkle). Over the course of the investigation, however, White improperly disclosed confidential information to people outside his chain of command, and made statements that (Hinkle) molested his stepdaughter. White also told (or at least strongly hinted to) several people that (Hinkle) had burned his own house down. Via White’s dissemination of false information, the investigation (including the accusations against (Hinkle) and the identity of his accuser) made its way into the public sphere: witnesses deponed they heard (Hinkle) was a child molester through the “rumor mill” and at least one local newspaper.
Hinkle’s failure, as indicated by the judge’s decision, was the styling of the case: he filed a civil rights deprivation instead of a defamation, the latter of which would likely have survived the summary judgment:
“(Hinkle’s) reputation may have suffered greatly as a result of (White’s) false statements, but no legal status was altered, thus no procedural protections were implicated.
“Viewed in light most favorable to (Hinkle), (White’s) statements about abuse allegations leveled at (Hinkle) showed an egregious lack of professionalism, especially given a prosecutor’s decision not to bring charges against (Hinkle). But grossly unprofessional, even defamatory statements are not—without more— actionable under the United States Constitution.”
Rick just doesn’t understand
It may have been those caustic remarks about White’s handling of the Hinkle case that prompted White to hurry to Fairfield’s radio station and ensure that the story played front and center the day after the judge’s order was made public, Friday, May 9.
There, much ado was made of the final line on the judge’s order wherein the clerk of the district court was directed to enter judgment in favor of White and Oliverio and against Hinkle, the final line reading “All case settings are CANCELLED and all other pending motions are MOOT”…as if that had some sort of emphatic punch and figurative slap in the face to Hinkle.
In actuality, all that was doing was merely cancelling future depositions that had been allowed by the court, as well as cancelling other pending motions leading up to the summary judgment.
This was the exact wording made in the final dismissal of Kelly Henby’s federal case when Henby voluntarily dismissed it August 6, 2013, and bore no overt nor covert meaning other than the case was closed.
However, over the course of the two federal proceedings, it had become apparent that White was not really familiar with how the federal court system worked, as evidenced by how he directed the radio station to handle media releases about them.
Henby’s OP
It was, therefore, the Henby OP that came to be the final possibility of White’s open references to perjury.
In the OP case, covered in full by Disclosure at the time, Henby accused White of stalking and harassing him on a couple of different incidents leading up to early 2013 when Henby’s grandmother-in-law died and White showed up at the visitation, only to be shown the door by Henby.
The lead-up to this occurred in 2010 when Henby was hired by Hinkle as a private investigator to manage the case White was pursuing against the then-sheriff.
The judge in the Richland County case Henby brought against White dismissed the OP petition with leave to refile. Henby took it to the federal court venue—as had Hinkle—against White on a civil rights violation.
For whatever reason, last July, Henby voluntarily dismissed the federal claim against White (as well as against Greg Hanisch, who was involved with White’s February 2011 dissemination to Disclosure in particular that a misdemeanor charge was filed against Henby in Coles County during the course of the investigation against Hinkle).
Henby, who has some perceived animosity toward Disclosure (likely because his attorney is Chuck Roberts, who has a personal bend against Disclosure publisher Jack Howser), will not comment when Disclosure calls to ask about the case.
However, a new filing appearing in the Richland County case Henby has against White perhaps lends to White’s ongoing references of “being investigated for perjury” in that county and that instant case.
Two instances of stalking
Upon dismissal with leave to refile of the OP case last year, the judge told Henby that in order for a case to qualify for “stalking,” there had to be at least two instances that could be considered “separate” of each other; otherwise, a single overt incident, such as White appearing at the aforementioned funeral, didn’t constitute enough information to allow an order to go through.
Henby had 30 days to file a Motion to Reconsider the case, which he did within the statutory time limit.
He then had to supply his reasoning for “two instances of stalking” he believed White perpetrated against him.
The new activity in the case, filed February 28 of this year, is a Supplement to the Motion for Reconsideration and a Motion for Leave to Amend the Supplement for Reconsideration.
Those were granted March 4 and March 20, respectively.
The Supplement shows Henby believed that not only was the action of White showing up at the visitation an act of stalking, but also that the act White took to “cause publication of the existence of a warrant of arrest” for Henby was a stalking act.
White, upon learning that Hinkle’s stepdaughter had recanted her sex abuse allegations to Henby after Henby had traveled to Charleston as a private investigator to interview the girl with her parents both present, sought to arrest Henby on a technicality of a description of his job as a PI, this falling back on Henby’s employer at the time, and was not a fraudulent presentation Henby made at all.
However, White was able to convince a Coles County assistant state’s attorney that it was ALL on Henby, and a misdemeanor charge of Practicing as a Detective without a License was filed there.
Henby came to believe that constituted an act of stalking after a deposition of former ISP investigator Greg Hanisch, was taken Jan. 13, 2014 in Hinkle’s case. There, Hanisch said he was questioned by ISP internal affairs investigators on May 3, 2011 in DuQuoin by Gaffner and Rick Morris. Hanisch, who reported to internal affairs that he had a “good relationship” with Disclosure publisher Jack Howser, said that White had “suggested to Hanisch that the information concerning the outstanding warrant for Henby …issued by Coles County…be sent to Disclosure.”
“Having seen the deposition,” the Richland County court file documents state, “it now appears more clear as to why the Illinois Attorney General’s office through Attorney Eric Lewis, filed a Motion to Quash a Subpoena on behalf of the State Police.
As well, “in addition to the foregoing new evidence which the petitioner has recently become aware of by the deposition of Jan. 13, 2014, there is also an indication that Mr. White lied in previous testimony.”
Could this be the perjury?
At the hearing where Henby sought the temporary Stalking/No-Contact order, White was called as an adverse witness, the paperwork states.
White “testified that he was not aware of the recantation of the subject of the investigation at the time that he sought an arrest warrant for Henby in Coles County.
“It now appears that White had done an investigation where he questioned the subject (Hinkle’s stepdaughter) and began his questioning of her by saying he had heard that she had changed her story, and said interview is on videotape which contradicts White’s testimony before this court.”
So it appears that the “perjury”—defined as lying to a judge about anything at all while on the witness stand—might stem from the Henby case in Richland County.
To further his request for a new OP hearing, Henby, in the court filing, stated that White also, at that time in February 2011, caused press releases to be issued to news outlets in southeastern Illinois, complete with mugshot of Henby from Coles, and that the act of issuing or causing press releases to be issued is not believed to be an official duty White had. These releases, Henby argued, “greatly embarrassed and harassed” him (the latter being part of the definition of stalking) and White’s conduct has caused Henby “severe emotional distress” (also an element in the definition of stalking.)
Through this, Henby is asking the OP to be reconsidered.
White was given until May 20 to respond to the motion, via his attorney, William Hudson of Mt. Carmel.
Rick on the sex crimes
In addition to White’s apparent attempt to offset any allegations of perjury Henby might have been making, White has also apparently taken great glee over the fact that his persistence against Dr. Chhabra paid off that same first week in May: IDPR removed Chhabra’s license permanently.
This came about because after White County State’s Attorney Denton Aud opted not to refile a sex charge against Chhabra in the case that resulted in the 2013 hung jury, White was able to find two other women to come to IDPR hearings and state—falsely—that they too had been Chhabra’s victims.
This is indicative of the pissivity White displays when things don’t go his way and he finds himself embarrassed over losing in court…the same kind of pissivity he displayed against Henby by trumping up the “practicing without a detective license” thing, which was fully dismissed in Coles in December 2012.
It’s also the same kind of targeting he’s displayed in the case of Cody McVaigh, 22, in Wayne County, wherein McVaigh had sex with a girl who conspired to lie about her age, making him believe she was over 18 when she was just 15. A charge against McVaigh last year was dismissed, but White pushed and got it reinstated. McVaigh remained locked up as of press time, with White claiming he had a confession out of the young man, when McVaigh claims he never confessed at all.
To make matters more concerning for Wayne Countians, the recent (May 9) arrest of Fairfield High School teacher Timothy Going had, as of press time, been turned over to Illinois State Police for investigation, and White will probably end up with the case.
Going is accused of placing a videotaping device in the girls’ locker room at the school. How officials traced the device back to Going will have to be revealed in upcoming articles, as not much was being disseminated on deadline. However, if Going was actually videotaping girls in states of undress, the fact that White might handle the case brings an air of non-credibility to the matter in any subsequent hearings, as White has firmly established, through the aforementioned cases, that his investigative skills are suspect…and his testimony lacks the ring of truth.
Watch disclosurenewsonline for updates as they occur.