Dart sues deputy over domestic abuse claims

Sheriff alleges man, man’s wife spread falsehoods in emails

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has sued one of his sheriff’s deputies and the man’s wife for allegedly emailing politicians, Chicago police investigators and journalists with false claims that Dart had attacked his wife last fall at their South Side home.

Sheriff’s DeputyHoward Denham and his wife, Nicole, using the pseudonym “Dan Burley,” used a Yahoo email address in spreading the false claims from her place of work, according to the lawsuit and Dart spokesman Dennis Culloton. The lawsuit also names her employer Paper Source Inc. as a defendant.

Culloton said Dart is “taking a stand against anonymous attacks.”

“He feels this is a very important thing to do not just for him personally but for everyone who gets attacked in this fashion,” Culloton said.

Beginning last fall, rumors swirled for months about alleged domestic incidents in Dart’s home, but Chicago police and sheriff’s officials said there was never a police response to Dart’s Mount Greenwood neighborhood house on the alleged dates. Chicago police have gone so far as to check GPS data to confirm officers did not go to Dart’s residence, a spokesmanpreviously told the Tribune.

Dart filed legal papers in February seeking to unmask an anonymous emailer who spread the allegations. That successful effort led to Dart’s filing the lawsuit Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court in his personal capacity, not as sheriff, through attorney John F. Winters Jr.

Howard Denham is a deputy working at the county jail, Cara Smith, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman, said. He startedworking for Dart’s office in September 2013 and makes more than $65,403 a year, Smith said. A disciplinary investigation into Denham has been initiated, Smith said. He will be reassigned but will continue receiving a paycheck, she said.

The Denhams could not be reached Friday for comment.

Dart’s lawsuit cites three emails the Denhams allegedly sent last October.

One email to media and public officials, sent Oct. 22, says Dart committed “double domestic battery incidents on his wife” and “physically attacked his wife at their Mount Greenwood home leaving visible injuries to her face and person,” according to the lawsuit. That email claimed there were two incidents — one on either Oct. 11 or 12, and another on Oct. 17. Multiple sheriff’s police and Chicago cops responded, according to the email quoted in the lawsuit, but “no media attention and hush hush.”

Anotheremail, dated Oct. 24, added allegations that Dart was involved in an “extra-marital affair” and referencedDart’s “domestic battery incidents against his wife in which she sustained physical injuries/ black eye,” the lawsuit said.

On Oct. 29, Denham emailed again to say Dart “attacked his wife causing visible injuries to her face,” observed by Chicago police and sheriff’s officers, and claiming that there’s a police report, the lawsuit said.

That email claimed Dart is “involved in this cover up” of the activity and that his wife told cops that her husband had attacked her, according to the lawsuit.

All the allegations in the emails are false, Dart’s lawsuit said.

In addition to suing Howard Denham, the lawsuit said his wife, Nicole, also disseminated the emails using her employer’s internet provider. A Paper Source representative did not return messages seeking comment.

Dart, a lawyerandformer state lawmaker, is running unopposed for re-election.

Dart’s discovery petition filed in February successfully asked a judge to order Yahoo to turn over the IP addresses and other identifying information from the email account used to send the messages.

Among the recipients of the October emails were Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Chicago police, Cook County commissioners, the county inspector general, the Department of Justice and reporters at CBS, CNN and the Chicago Sun-Times. Records show a complaint alsowas made to a Chicago police oversight agency in October alleging that police refused to act or take reports “in regards to an incident that occurred at Sheriff Tom Dart’s home that involved his wife and his girlfriend.”

The complaint to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which investigates police misconduct, was not cited in the lawsuit but was previously obtained by the Tribune under an open records request.

Culloton said they were able to identify the defendants through the legal process that Dart’s attorney began back in February. It involved a judicial order that ordered Yahoo to “unmask” the identities of a few names used to spread the rumor, Culloton said.

The lawsuit is seeking monetary damages against each of the defendants.