Francisco Valdes, a veteran Will County Sheriff’s Department Corrections Officer, has been charged with two counts of battery, according to charging documents Patch has reviewed. What makes the secret prosecution against Valdes even more bizarre is the fact that both of his pending criminal charges are classified as misdemeanors.

Why would someone in authority not want the public or the press to know about the prosecution of a veteran corrections guard, especially on misdemeanors? Why would someone petition a Will County judge and ask that the criminal file be kept off limits to the public?

At the time of this article, Patch was not able to determine who was directly responsible for asking that the criminal case against Valdes be handled in secret.

However, after the article was published, Will County State’s Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Carole Cheney contacted Joliet Patch and she supplied the following information: “The State’s Attorney’s Office filed the initial charges and the matter was initially sealed for the protection of the arresting officers.

“A motion for appointment of the Illinois Appellate Prosecutor’s Office, to avoid the appearance of an impropriety, was presented to the chief judge and granted. An arrest has been made and the Illinois Appellate Prosecutor’s Office is free to remove the seal,” Cheney wrote back to Patch.

Last week, Joliet Patch spoke with one veteran Joliet attorney who had no prior knowledge or familiarity with the case. The attorney told Patch that he had never heard of anything similar in regard to a pending criminal case being sealed in at least 20 years of practicing law in Will County.

In late April, Patch had learned that the pending criminal case number for Francisco Valdes — which, as of May 4, 2019, was not available for public inspection on the Will County courts public access website or by visiting the courthouse in person and asking to review the court file — Will County case number 2018CM2516.

Valdes, who turned 44 last month, was formally charged with battery offenses by the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office of Jim Glasgow in December. Patch has learned through sources that Valdes has been accused of attacking a prisoner named Antonio Russell-Rivers, 20, who resides in Niles, Illinois, according to jail records.

Patch learned from sources that Russell-Rivers had been apparently acting unruly or disruptive at the Will County Adult Detention Facility last September, however, a number of higher-ups at the Will County Sheriff’s Department determined that the subsequent conduct of Correctional Officer Valdes crossed the line.

According to charging documents and internal affairs documents that Patch has reviewed, at the time of the incident last September, Russell-Rivers was apparently sitting on his mattress in his cell when Correctional Officer Valdes approached and struck the inmate, landing a hard blow to the inmate’s face.

The incident was captured on video. After an internal affairs investigation, Will County Sheriff’s officials agreed that the correctional officer’s actions warranted the filing of charges.

That investigation led to the eventual filing of the criminal battery charges against Valdes, which someone decided ought to be kept hidden from the public. Patch also learned that this was not first time that Valdes has been accused of being rough with the inmates at the Will County Jail.

Additionally, on Monday, April 29, Joliet Patch submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Will County Sheriff’s Department seeking access to information about the case against Will County Sheriff’s Corrections Officer Francisco Valdes.

Shannon Wahl, Freedom of Information Act officer for the sheriff’s agency, responded back on Thursday, May 2, denying the request.

Here is Wahl’s response to Patch: