Will County Tried to Keep a Termination Letter Behind a Criminal-Case Excuse.
A newspaper asked how a public employee’s job ended. Prosecutors withheld the letter, then failed to justify the secrecy.
A public employee’s termination letter did not become a confidential prosecution file merely because the employee faced criminal charges. That is the line the Illinois Attorney General drew against the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office in Opinion 26-002.
Herald-News reporter Felix Sarver requested employment-status communications concerning Amy Burgett-Masse on October 10,2025. The office extended its response deadline, then withheld her termination letter on October 28, citing interference with proceedings and the risk of an unfair trial. Sarver challenged the denial the following day.
The state had to ask again
The PAC sought the unredacted letter and an explanation on November 6. With no response, it sent another letter on November 25. The office supplied materials on December 8, including a confidential submission. This was a denial followed by a review, a repeated state inquiry and a defense of the withholding.
The opinion rejected both the threshold classification and the evidence offered to support secrecy. The letter was a personnel record documenting an employment termination, rather than a record maintained for a law-enforcement purpose. General concerns about witnesses, publicity and a jury did not establish that this letter met the cited exemptions.
Employment accountability survives a prosecution
The ruling directed disclosure, while allowing specified private information and one person’s name to be redacted. That distinction matters: protecting a home address or another person’s privacy did not justify withholding the entire employment record.
The public question was what the government did as an employer. The PAC decision did not decide the employee’s criminal guilt. It decided whether the prosecuting office had proved a lawful reason to withhold the letter. It had not.
For an office that invokes legal standards in court, a binding order to release its own employment record is a serious accountability result. The dated correspondence explains how the dispute reached that point.
Read the record
Open or download the official binding opinion 26-002 (PDF). The opinion contains the complaint history, the agency’s response, the legal analysis and the ordered remedy.
Reporting is based on the cited opinion and linked coverage. A direction to disclose records or repeat a vote is not proof that the agency later complied. Cover: AI-generated editorial illustration; rooms, papers and objects are symbolic. “PAC vs.” is a series label, not a court-case caption.
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