ACCUSED OF IMPROPERLY ACCESSING ZAHND’S EMAILS
According to the special prosecutor that was appointed to review the case, the criminal investigation against Platte County Presiding Commissioner Scott Fricker remains open.
That was the word from Dan Patterson prosecuting attorney for Greene County in Springfield. Patterson was appointed by a Platte County judge to handle the case of Fricker allegedly tampering with computer data and the computer equipment of Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd.
“No update, situation is the same,” Patterson responded to an email inquiry from The Landmark on June 2.
The email inquiry was a follow-up to an email from Patterson in which the special prosecutor had said “the matter remains an open investigation.”
In February, The Landmark reported Fricker is the subject of a Missouri State Highway Patrol probe into the situation.
Reached for comment at the time, 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.”
Fricker had earlier filed for reelection, but withdrew his candidacy later in March after the investigation was announced. Zahnd had also filed for reelection earlier this year, but withdrew his candidacy in late March and has announced he will retire at the end of this year.
At one point in late March, Fricker made a post on The Landmark’s Facebook page saying that the criminal investigation of him “is over.” Fricker later deleted that post.
On April 1, the special prosecutor contradicted Fricker’s claim that the investigation had ended.
“The matter you referred to remains an open investigation,” Patterson said in an email sent to The Landmark.
Platte County Presiding Judge Ann Hansbrough approved an order naming 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.
In February 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 had been embroiled in an at-times heated 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 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 told The Landmark at the time that he was requesting 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’s 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.
According to the incident report, 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
According to 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.
