Judge to rule on resolution, meeting recordings

A Lake County judge said Wednesday he will decide in three weeks if he will allow an Island Lake village board resolution concerning an employee's pay status to be used at her trial.

Circuit Judge Fred Foreman also said he will let parties know Nov. 17 if recordings of some village board members discussing the resolution in support of Sharon Hyde will be part of the criminal case against her.

Hyde, the wife of former Island Lake mayor Thomas Hyde, is charged with collecting more than $100,000 in pay for being the director of a village-run day care center for hours she did not work.

On March 11, just two weeks after Foreman had refused to dismiss the charges against Sharon Hyde, four village board members voted in favor of a resolution declaring she was a salaried employee of the village not subject to accounting for her hours.

Her defense team believes the resolution should be admissible as evidence in the case because it amounts to the victim saying no crime had been committed.

“There is obviously some disagreement as to Sharon Hyde's pay status,” Waukegan attorney Brian Smith told Foreman. “Here we have a statement from her employer, the person allegedly being stolen from, clarifying that matter.”

But Assistant State's Attorney Jason Grindel argued the resolution, adopted months after Hyde was indicted, was authored by some people who were not on the board for the entire 10-year period Hyde is accused of padding her paychecks.

“It is clear this document was written to absolve the defendant of any wrongdoing,” Grindel said. “There is no evidence that some who voted for this did any fact-finding or investigation of periods they were not even involved in the government.”

Foreman said he also wanted more time to consider a request from prosecutors that they be given access to tape recordings of board executive sessions during which the resolution was discussed and drafted.

They argued last week they should have a complete picture of how the resolution came to be, while an attorney for the board said such recordings are not open to the public until the board votes to release them.