FRICKER: ‘IT’S TOTAL BULLSHIT. IT’S INTIMIDATION’
The Landmark on Wednesday confirmed Platte County Presiding Commissioner Scott Fricker is under criminal investigation for allegedly tampering with computer data and the computer equipment of Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd.
Reached for comment Wednesday evening, Fricker told The Landmark that accusations being leveled against him by Zahnd are “total bullshit” and “attempted intimidation” by the prosecutor to get Fricker out of seeking reelection. He went on to describe the action as “lawfare” and said the situation will “bite (Zahnd) in the ass.”
The investigation of the alleged criminal activity is being handled by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, and a special prosecutor in the matter has been appointed. Platte County Presiding Judge Ann Hansbrough has approved an order naming Greene County Prosecuting Attorney J. Daniel Patterson to serve as special prosecutor if prosecution is found to be warranted.
The order authorizes Patterson’s office to assist the Missouri State Highway Patrol in its investigation of Fricker, apply for search warrants or investigative subpoenas as he deems warranted, review investigative reports and other evidence, and proceed with any criminal prosecution he deems appropriate in the matter.
Recently through a Sunshine Law request to the Platte County Sheriff’s Department, The Landmark obtained an incident report on the topic of Zahnd’s concerns about his county email account being accessed without his authorization.
The incident report shows detectives met with Zahnd on Feb. 5. The report indicates Zahnd had received an ethics complaint filed by Fricker with the Missouri Ethics Commission. In his complaint to the MEC, Fricker alleges Zahnd used county resources to interfere with a political campaign.
The county prosecutor and county sheriff have been embroiled in an at-times vehement disagreement with county commissioners over the county commission’s recent decision to limit pay raises for county employees to 2.5 percent instead of an auditor-recommended amount of five percent. The sheriff and prosecutor have said the decision will have a negative impact on law enforcement in Platte County.
In the meeting with detectives, Zahnd provided a copy of Fricker’s complaint filed with the ethics commission and pointed out his concern about an email that Fricker had attached to the complaint.
Fricker’s complaint attached a copy of a news release listing Zahnd’s county-owned email address in the header.
“Even more strikingly, addresses in the ‘BCC’ field were visible. Upon information and belief, the email was printed by someone who had accessed Prosecuting Attorney Zahnd’s emails which are stored in his official email account: ezahnd@co.platte.mo.us,” Zahnd said in his motion requesting a special prosecutor, a document obtained by The Landmark through a public records request.
Under the function of BCC emails, the email addresses of those persons copied via BCC are not visible to recipients. In other words, the copy of the email that Fricker furnished to the ethics commission showing the BCC recipients “could only be obtained by accessing Prosecutor Zahnd’s email in violation of RSMo. 569.095 or other laws,” Platte County Sheriff Erik Holland wrote in an email to the highway patrol requesting the patrol take the investigation.
Holland said he was requesting that the highway patrol handle the probe into the allegations in the interests of fairness and transparency based on the individuals possibly involved “since there is an ongoing budget dispute between the sheriff’s office, the prosecutor’s office and the county commission.”
The sheriff’s incident report indicates there was reasonable suspicion to believe Fricker himself gained unauthorized access to Zahnd’s emails or that Fricker, in his capacity as presiding commissioner, ordered someone in the county’s IT department to access Zahnd’s email without Zahnd’s authorization.
Court documents filed by Zahnd point out Zahnd’s email account includes “confidential law enforcement information, attorney work product, sensitive communications with crime victims, and other protected information.”
In his motion requesting a special prosecutor, Zahnd says he had previously communicated with Platte County information technology director Ted Smith regarding access to emails of employees of the prosecutor’s office.
“Prosecuting Attorney Zahnd previously demanded of Mr. Smith and Mr. Smith assured (Zahnd) that emails belonging to employees in the prosecutor’s office would not be accessed by Mr. Smith or any county employee under Mr. Smith’s supervision without Prosecuting Attorney Zahnd’s prior authorization,” the motion to request a special prosecutor states.
According to the incident report, in the Feb. 5 meeting between sheriff department detectives and Zahnd, discussion was held regarding Sunshine Law and open records request procedures at the prosecutor’s office. Zahnd told detectives that neither Fricker nor any other county official has authority to obtain his emails outside the standard Sunshine Law process, and that no such request had been received.
Zahnd told detectives that his assistant prosecutor Mark Gibson is the designated custodian of records for the prosecutor’s office and all open records requests are routed through Gibson. Gibson joined the meeting with detectives and confirmed he has not received any Sunshine Law requests or legal process requesting Zahnd’s emails, including the press release in question.
Zahnd told detectives that while county IT personnel have the technical ability to access email servers for maintenance or records requests, “they are not authorized to review or disseminate email content without proper authorization,” according to the incident report.
ALLEGED ACTIONS ARE
POTENTIAL FELONIES
From observing public documents, it appears there are three possible crimes being investigated: tampering with computer data, tampering with computer equipment, and tampering with computer users.
All three could be considered as separate felonies, “punishable by up to a total of 12 years in prison,” according to court documents.
“There is reasonable suspicion that Mr. Fricker committed the crime of tampering because Mr. Fricker knowingly and without authorization disclosed or took data existing internal or external to a computer system or network, and/or took a password, identifying code, personal identification number or other confidential information about a computer system,” Zahnd wrote in his motion seeking a special prosecutor.
ZAHND ASKS MEC
TO FIND FRICKER’S
COMPLAINT FRIVOLOUS
Zahnd has filed a motion with the Missouri Ethics Commission seeking that the MEC find Fricker’s complaint against him to be frivolous.
In addition, Zahnd seeks to recover actual and compensatory damages as a result of Fricker’s complaint.
Zahnd’s request to the MEC says “this commission has repeatedly found that a public official may use government property to express in writing the same sentiments he or she is entitled to express when making a public appearance. Indeed, the (ethics commission) has summarily rejected frivolous complaints filed in contravention of the First Amendment’s protection of political speech under exactly that circumstance.”
Zahnd says the Fricker complaint is different from a Missouri Ethics Commisison case from 2022 in which the MEC reprimanded Platte County Second District Commissioner Joe Vanover and other, now-retired Platte County commissioners after it found probable cause to believe those county commissioners had violated law by posting an event titled “Scott Fricker for Presiding Commissioner Event” on the Platte County Commission’s online calendar.
In that case, Vanover and other commissioners admitted that “by posting an event titled ‘Scott Fricker for Presiding Commissioner Event’ on the Platte County Commission’s online calendar there is probable cause to believe public funds were expended and there is probable cause to believe that such a posting can be considered a statement in support of a candidate for eleciton.”
Unlike that case, Zahnd’s remarks in his emailed press release are “not a statement in support of a candidate for election.” Instead, he writes in his motion to the MEC, it is “a robust, uninhibited, wide open and arguably vehement, caustic and perhaps for Mr. Fricker unpleasantly sharp attack due to Mr. Fricker’s decision to defund police and prosecutors.”
Zahnd goes on to request the MEC find that Fricker’s complaint against him is frivolous and permit Zahnd to pursue “actual and compensatory damages from Fricker for attempting to vindictively damage Prosecuting Attorney Zahnd’s reputation in retaliation against Zahnd for speaking out” against Fricker’s action concerning the law enforcement budget.
In an email to Fricker this week, Zahnd told the presiding commissioner: “I am also presently consulting with an attorney about other potential causes of action that may hold you personally liable for violations of state and federal law.”
FRICKER’S REACTION
The Landmark caught up with Fricker by telephone Wednesday evening.
“It’s total bullshit. He (Zahnd) has said he would use everything in his power to get me out of the race. This is intimidation to try to get me out of the race,” said Fricker, who filed for reelection earlier this week.
Fricker said the information he obtained is public information that anyone could get.
“I had our IT department pull a copy of the emails that he sent in that time frame. It’s all public information, all stored on county servers. Zahnd can’t tell IT to not give it up,” Fricker stated.
“He is claiming that I inappropriately accessed that information. It’s total bullshit. If I didn’t follow correct procedure, what is that, a slap on the wrist? He is trying to get me charged with three felonies,” the county commissioner continued.
“This is lawfare and he’s not going to get away with it,” Fricker said. “It’s going to bite him in the ass.”
Fricker said Zahnd “is trying to intimidate anybody from filing an MEC complaint against him because if you file a complaint against Zahnd you’ll get charged with felonies.”
The commissioner went on to say about Zahnd:“Something is wrong with him. He’s losing it. This is insane behavior. This is going to backfire on him, because he is so filled with rage.”
Fricker compared the situation to an incident about a decade ago “when Zahnd intimidated people in Dearborn who had testified on behalf of a sex offender during sentencing and the Missouri Supreme Court sanctioned him for that.”
Fricker said in the most recent budget dispute, Zahnd used county resources to try and affect the outcome of a county political race. “That is illegal. There is legal action that I can take on that front but I’ve decided not to, for now,” the commissioner remarked.
Fricker said what he calls Zahnd’s “attempted intimidation” is actually “incentivizing me to run.”
Fricker filed for reelection on Tuesday, the first day of the candidate filing period. There are two other Republicans who have already filed for the presiding commissioner position, as well.
“This is about Zahnd controlling the commission. It’s a power play. He knows he can’t push me around and he can’t stand it. This is the way he bullies people he can’t control,” Fricker told The Landmark.
“This is about the office of the prosecutor trying to affect the outcome of a political campaign. It’s not going to end well for him. I’m not backing down from this,” Fricker added.
