Exclusive: Judge blasts prosecutors in case seeking return of mayor's seized property

After more than six months, the DOJ case remains shrouded in mystery, the mayor's property remains seized and the case to have them returned has become more complicated.

Update from the city’s ethics board meeting now below.

All eyes in the media and those paying attention to politics are on the Tuesday afternoon special meeting of the Ethics Board. And this post will get into that.

But another important hearing was held Tuesday morning, which no media besides The Wausonian attended. And it shed some pretty serious light on the criminal side of the investigation which is currently shrouded in mystery.

The case in question? Attorneys earlier in the year filed a petition to the court to have property belonging to Mayor Doug Diny and his wife, Jean returned to them. That property was confiscated in a DOJ raid last year, part of the state’s investigation into Diny removing a ballot box from the steps of city hall on a Sunday in September.

Why? Because it has been over six months since the Dinys’ property including phones and computers were confiscated in the raid and, to date, they haven’t been returned.

Worse, the court process has seen repeated delays, so much so that Circuit Court Judge Galen Bayne-Allison had some choice words for the prosecution who at several points in the proceedings said they were unprepared to make arguments on key elements in the case.