FOIA 25-139: Forfeitures in cases that ended without a conviction, certified not to exist — while the same office took an extension for the volume of records

Watchdog Alerts

Why isn’t this basic information available to the public?

1. The office certified that it has no record of any 2024 asset forfeiture in which the criminal case was later dismissed or ended without a conviction. That is a claim about the office's own files, and the letter does not say what was searched.
2. Forfeiture in Michigan is a civil action with its own docket in the circuit court. A certificate that the prosecutor's office has no record is narrower than a claim that no forfeiture case exists — and the letter never draws that distinction.
3. The request asked the office to identify any exemption and release segregable portions. The denial cites no exemption and produces no page, so there is nothing to segregate and nothing to review.
4. The same requester filed a parallel request for the 2024 civil forfeiture case index from the Circuit Court (FOIA 25-173) and a separate forfeiture-with-dismissal request (FOIA 25-174) on the same day. The office's answer here does not acknowledge that the underlying dockets are public court records.
5. The packet is eighteen pages long and contains no responsive document — and it does not even contain an extension notice for this request. The extension notice inside the 25-139 packet belongs to FOIA 25-129.

Timing caveat. ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request covers calendar year 2024, so part of the requested period predates the system. This page does not fault the office for lacking a system-generated forfeiture report before June 2024. The criticism is that the office did not say whether it searched its own forfeiture files at all, or whether the answer would differ for the months after the system went live.

On Friday, June 27, 2025, at 9:02 in the morning, a two-page fax reached the Delta County Prosecutor's Office. It asked a narrow, specific question about money and property: in calendar year 2024, did the office initiate any asset forfeiture action in which the criminal case that justified the seizure was later dismissed, or ended without a conviction? If so, the requester wanted six things about each one — the forfeiture docket number, the underlying criminal case number, what was seized, when the forfeiture was filed, how the criminal case ended, and what finally happened to the property.

He did not ask for a legal opinion. He did not ask for a narrative. He said a summary table, a spreadsheet, or an internal report would do.

On July 17, 2025, the office answered. It denied the request in full, on a certificate of nonexistence: that after a search, and to the best of the coordinator's knowledge and belief, “the public records requested do not exist within the records of the public body under the name nor any other name reasonably known to the public body.” Nothing was produced. No fee was quoted. No exemption was named. The Notice of Denial checks “All” denied and reason box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” and leaves the exemption box and the redaction box blank.

That answer may well be lawful, and this page says so plainly. Michigan's FOIA does not require a public body to build a report it has never built. But this particular certificate has a feature the others in this archive do not, and it is the reason the file is worth reading. The eighteen-page packet contains no extension notice for request 25-139 at all. The extension form inside it belongs to a different request, 25-129. So the record does not show the office taking the ten extra business days that would explain why a request received in late June was answered in mid-July. It shows a five-business-day clock, a response roughly seven business days past it, and a form for somebody else's file.

Summary

FOIA 25-139 asks about the least comfortable category of forfeiture there is. Most forfeiture requests ask how much was taken. This one asked what happened when the case that justified the taking fell apart. If a prosecutor's office seizes a car or cash on a drug charge, and the charge is later dismissed, the public has an obvious interest in knowing whether the property went back. That question is not an accusation. It is the basic accountability question that forfeiture law exists inside of, and it is answerable from records a prosecutor's office and a circuit court both keep.

The office's answer was a certificate of nonexistence. Six numbers describe what came back, and five of them are zero. Zero pages of responsive records. Zero dollars quoted. Zero dollars paid. Zero exemptions cited. Zero forfeiture dockets, criminal case numbers, property descriptions, filing dates, or outcomes. The sixth number is eighteen: the pages in the packet, every one of which is paperwork about the denial rather than a record in it.

There is a version of this file in which the office is simply right, and it deserves to be stated first. Michigan forfeiture is a civil action. It is filed by the prosecuting attorney in the circuit court, it gets its own docket number, and it is litigated separately from the criminal case. If the Delta County Prosecutor's Office never filed a forfeiture in 2024 that was tied to a case later dismissed, then there is no such record, and a certificate of nonexistence is the accurate and lawful answer. Nothing in this packet contradicts that possibility.

But the certificate is a statement about the office's records, and the request was a statement about forfeiture actions. Those are not the same thing, and the letter never draws the distinction. A forfeiture action leaves a trail in at least four places: the prosecutor's own file, the circuit court's civil docket, the county's accounts if property was sold, and the seizing agency's inventory. A certificate that says “the public records requested do not exist within the records of the public body” speaks to the first of those. It says nothing about the second, third, or fourth, and it does not say which ones were checked.

That gap matters more here than it would for an ordinary request, because the requester had already thought of it. On the same day, at almost the same hour, he faxed two companion requests: 25-173, for the 2024 civil asset forfeiture case index from the Delta County Circuit Court, and 25-174, for 2024 asset forfeiture actions with dismissed or unsuccessful criminal cases. Three requests, three custodians, one subject. The office's answer to 25-139 does not mention that the underlying dockets are public court records, does not say whether it searched its own forfeiture files, and does not say whether the answer would be different if the question were put to the court clerk instead.

There is also the matter of the missing extension. A request faxed on June 27 is deemed received on June 30 under MCL 15.235(1). Five business days from June 30, allowing for the July 4 holiday, is July 8. The office answered on July 17. Without an extension, that is late. With an extension, it is comfortably inside the window — and the office clearly knew how to take one, because it took one for 25-137 the same week, and because the packet for 25-139 physically contains an extension form. That form names request 25-129. It does not name 25-139.

This page does not allege a deadline violation. The released packet may simply omit a notice the office issued, and a missing page is not proof of a missing act. What the page does is record what the packet shows and what it does not, because a public body that answers a request late without a notice on file, and that files another request's notice in the same envelope, has created a recordkeeping problem the public can see even without knowing the internal sequence.

What was requested

The request is dated June 27th, 2025, captioned “Michigan Freedom of Information Act Request — Dismissed or Unsuccessful Criminal Cases — 2024 Forfeiture Actions,” and addressed to “Lauren Wickman, Prosecutor” and the FOIA Coordinator at 310 Ludington Street, Escanaba. It was transmitted by fax at 9:02:25 a.m. Eastern, two pages, from the same out-of-state number that carried 25-137 six minutes earlier.

The operative paragraph reads:

“Please provide any records showing asset forfeiture actions initiated by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office during the calendar year January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024, in which the related criminal case was later dismissed or resulted in no conviction. If available, please include for each forfeiture case: The forfeiture case number or docket number; The underlying criminal case number; A brief description of the property seized; The date of forfeiture filing; The disposition of the related criminal case (e.g., dismissed, acquitted, or not prosecuted); The final outcome of the forfeiture action (e.g., property retained, returned, or sold). A summary table, spreadsheet, or internal report is acceptable.”

Five features of the request shape how it should have been read.

It asked for records, not for a new analysis. The words are “any records showing asset forfeiture actions.” A forfeiture file, a docket sheet, a settlement agreement, a property disposition form, a spreadsheet the office already keeps — any of those would satisfy it. The request did not ask the office to cross-reference its forfeitures against its criminal dispositions and produce a new study. It asked whether records of that cross-reference already exist.

It named the six data points that make a forfeiture auditable. Docket number, criminal case number, property description, filing date, criminal disposition, final outcome. Those six fields are not a wish list. They are what a forfeiture file contains, because a forfeiture cannot be filed without a criminal case number and cannot be closed without a disposition of the property. A requester who names those fields has told the office exactly which drawer to open.

It offered the cheapest possible packaging. “A summary table, spreadsheet, or internal report is acceptable.” That sentence is a requester saying: do not format anything for me. An export, a screenshot, a photocopied log — any of those would do.

It named a delivery format, a cost ceiling, and a fee estimate. The request asked for the records “electronically (PDF, Excel, or CSV) via email or secure download link,” set a fifty-dollar ceiling, and asked for “a written, itemized estimate before proceeding, as required by MCL 15.234” if the cost would exceed it. That is the provision that forces a public body to price the work rather than simply refuse it. Here it produced nothing, because no work was priced.

It asked for exemptions to be named and the rest to be released. “If any portion of this request is withheld, please cite each specific statutory exemption relied upon and provide all reasonably segregable non-exempt information, per MCL 15.244.” That sentence anticipates the obvious objection — that forfeiture files carry names, addresses, and case detail — and pre-empts it by asking for redaction instead of withholding.

One detail about how the office handled the request is worth recording here, because it is documented and it is easy to miss. The response letter says it acknowledges the request “for the following documents,” and then quotes it. The quotation is not complete. It reproduces the core paragraph, the six bullet points, and the “summary table” sentence, and it stops. The preferred format, the fifty-dollar cost limit, and the exemption-and-segregation demand are all missing from the letter's quotation of the request it is denying. The same truncation appears in the 25-137 letter. Whatever the reason — a template, a copy-and-paste of the request's first page — the effect is that the office's own record of what was asked omits the three procedural demands the requester made, and then the office does not answer any of them.

The paper trail

Two details in that timeline deserve a paragraph each.

The first is the extension form. It is real, it is dated July 2, 2025, it checks the volume ground, and it is physically inside the packet the county released in response to 25-139. It is also for request 25-129 — a request for arraignment-to-disposition times that is already in this archive, and one that the office answered by certifying nonexistence and then quoting $2,931.12 for the work. The number is handwritten on the form and legible at high resolution. This site has therefore moved the document to the 25-129 record, where it belongs, and it is listed in the archive's extension-notice register as a linked notice rather than a new one.

What that leaves behind is a gap. If the office did not extend 25-139, its response came about seven business days after the five-day deadline. If it did extend, the notice is missing from the release. Either way the packet does not show the procedural step that would make the timeline ordinary, and a requester reading the release has no way to tell which of the two happened. The distinction is not academic: an extension is a statutory act with a date, a stated ground, and a new deadline, and it is the difference between a timely answer and a late one.

The second detail is the one-day gap between the letter and the form, which recurs across this office's responses. The cover letter is dated July 17, 2025. The signature line on the Notice of Denial is dated 7-18-2025, verified at high resolution on the released copy. A form signed the next morning is ordinary paperwork, not a scandal. It is noted here only because it shows that the denial was still being finalized on July 18, eleven business days after the deadline the statute set.

What was asked, and what came back

The scorecard makes the shape of the response visible. Eight distinct requests — a category of forfeiture, six data fields, and any existing report — were disposed of in one sentence. Three procedural demands were not addressed at all. That is efficient, and it is probably lawful, and it is also the reason this file exists: a requester who asks eleven things and receives one certificate cannot tell which of the eleven the office actually considered, or whether it looked for any of them.

Where a forfeiture record would live

The most useful thing this record does is force a question the letter never asks: where would the answer be, if it existed? A forfeiture is not a single document in a single drawer. It is a civil action, and it generates paper in several places at once. The table below lays out the five most likely custodians and what each would hold.

Read down the third column and the pattern is plain: five plausible locations, one answer, and no indication that any location other than the first was considered. That is not necessarily wrong. The office is the custodian of its own records, and it is not obliged to answer for the court clerk, the treasurer, or the sheriff. But the request was written by someone who understood that a forfeiture is a civil action, and the answer was written as though a forfeiture were a document that either sits in a prosecutor's drawer or does not exist.

Michigan law — the statutory framework applied here

Legal interpretation: The two principal Michigan forfeiture schemes are the controlled-substances forfeiture provisions, MCL 333.7521 et seq., and the general criminal forfeiture provisions, MCL 600.4701 et seq. Both contemplate a civil action filed by the prosecuting attorney in the circuit court, and both produce a court file with its own docket number. That structure is why the request asked for a “forfeiture case number or docket number” first: the docket number is the key that unlocks everything else. A certificate of nonexistence that does not mention the docket, the court, or the filing date is a statement about the prosecutor's internal files, and it is narrower than the question the requester asked.

There is a further consequence, and it cuts in the office's favor. If the office genuinely never filed such a forfeiture in 2024, then there is no docket number to give, and the certificate is correct. The page does not assert that a forfeiture exists. It asserts that the public cannot tell, from this record, whether the office searched the places where one would be recorded, and that the office had an inexpensive way to say so and did not use it.

The pattern: a question about cases, answered with a certificate

25-139 is the fourth request in this archive to ask for case-level data about the office's own work in calendar year 2024 and the fourth to be answered with a certificate of nonexistence. The table below sets the instances side by side, including the two companion requests the same requester filed the same morning.

The pattern across those rows is not that the office always refuses. It is that the office refuses in a particular shape. When the request can be satisfied with a document that already exists in finished form — an annual screening table, a set of aggregate totals — the office produces it, sometimes for a fee. When the request requires the office to look across its own cases and report what it finds, the office either certifies that the resulting record does not exist or prices the compilation high enough that the request dies. The certificate is the cheaper of the two refusals, and it is the harder one to challenge, because there is no fee determination to appeal and no produced record to test.

25-139 is the purest example of the certificate path applied to a question about cases. The request did not ask the office to compute anything. It asked for records showing forfeiture actions and their outcomes, with six fields that a forfeiture file necessarily contains. The office's answer was that no such record exists — a claim that may be true of its own files and says nothing about the court's.

The appeal, and what it did not address

The requester appealed to the Delta County Board of Commissioners. The Board received the appeal at its regular meeting on August 5, 2025, determined to uphold the denial at a special meeting on August 18, 2025, and Chair John Malnar signed the written notice on August 20, 2025.

The letter is one page. Its operative sentence is: “Your request was initially denied because the response excluded records that the Delta County FOIA Coordinator determined were deemed to not exist.” That is the entire reasoning. The letter does not describe any search. It does not identify an exemption. It does not address the distinction between the prosecutor's files and the circuit court's docket. It does not mention the missing extension notice. It records no vote count and cites no agenda item.

The timing here is worth noting in the Board's favor: the tenth business day after August 5 was August 19, so the determination on August 18 fell inside the statutory period. The written notice, dated August 20, came one day after that period closed — a minor point, and not one this page treats as a violation, since the determination itself was timely.

Michigan law — the statutory framework applied here

Legal interpretation: MCL 15.240(1) gives a requester two routes: appeal to the head of the public body, or file a civil action in circuit court. The Board of Commissioners is the appeal authority for a county prosecutor's denial, and its determination is what the statute contemplates. But MCL 15.240(2) requires the body to “determine” the appeal, and a determination that restates the coordinator's conclusion without examining its basis is difficult to distinguish from a rubber stamp. The statute does not define how thorough the review must be. It does, however, place the appeal in front of a differently constituted body, which implies that the body is expected to look at something the coordinator did not.

The legal framework, in plain terms

Michigan law — the statutory framework applied here

Legal interpretation: MCL 15.233(1) defines a public record as a writing prepared, owned, used, in the possession of, or retained by a public body in the performance of an official function. A forfeiture complaint, a docket sheet, a settlement agreement, and a property disposition form are all writings of that kind. An answer to the question — whether any such forfeiture was tied to a dismissed case — is not itself a writing unless someone has assembled one. The distinction between a writing and an answer assembled from writings is the hinge on which this file turns.

Michigan law — the statutory framework applied here

Legal interpretation: MCL 15.233(5) provides that if a public body does not possess a record, it shall certify that fact in writing to the requester. The certificate in this packet tracks the statutory language closely. If the office genuinely possesses no responsive record, the certificate is the right form of answer, and the office complied with the statute by giving it.

Michigan law — the statutory framework applied here

Legal interpretation: MCL 15.233(4) is the provision the letter does not use. It allows a public body to decline to make a compilation, summary, or report of information, and to decline to provide a certified copy of a record, unless the request is for a record that already exists. The distinction between (4) and (5) is the distinction between “we will not assemble this” and “this does not exist.” A body that relies on (4) is acknowledging the underlying records; a body that relies on (5) is denying them. Choosing (5) when the truth is closer to (4) is not a technicality. It tells the requester there is nothing further to ask for.

Michigan law — the statutory framework applied here

Legal interpretation: MCL 15.235(2) gives a public body five business days to respond and permits one extension of up to ten business days in defined circumstances, including when the requested records are voluminous. The office took that extension for 25-137 the same week, and the packet for 25-139 contains an extension form — but for 25-129. On the face of the released record, no extension was taken for 25-139, and the response on July 17 came roughly seven business days after the five-day deadline. This page does not allege a violation, because the release may omit a notice the office issued. It records the gap and the misfiled form, because both are visible in the packet and neither is explained by it.

Michigan law — the statutory framework applied here

Legal interpretation: MCL 15.234 governs fees. It permits a public body to charge for the cost of searching, examining, reviewing, and separating records, computed at the hourly wage of the lowest-paid employee capable of the work, plus fringe benefits, and it requires an itemized estimate if one is requested. The request here asked for an estimate in advance if the cost would exceed $50. No estimate was issued. That is consistent with a certificate of nonexistence — there was no work to price — but it also means the requester never learned what the office thought a search of its forfeiture files would cost, which is the information that would have told him whether the office had considered doing it.

Michigan law — the statutory framework applied here

Legal interpretation: MCL 15.244 requires a public body that withholds exempt material to separate and release the nonexempt portion. Because the office withheld nothing as exempt, the segregation duty was never triggered. The provision is relevant here only because the request invoked it, and because its invocation is evidence that the requester anticipated a redaction problem — names, addresses, case detail — and offered to accept redacted records rather than full ones. The office did not take him up on it, and its quotation of the request leaves the offer out.

Michigan law — the statutory framework applied here

Legal interpretation: MCL 15.240 provides the appeal route the requester used, and MCL 15.240a provides a separate route for challenging an excess fee. Because no fee was quoted, the fee-appeal route was unavailable. That is a structural feature worth naming: a certificate of nonexistence closes both the records question and the fee question at once, leaving only the general appeal and a circuit-court action.

Authorities and sources cited on this page

Show the statutes, cases, and sources cited on this page

Michigan Freedom of Information Act, Public Act 442 of 1976, MCL 15.231 et seq., in particular MCL 15.233(1) (definition of public record), MCL 15.233(4) (compilation and summary), MCL 15.233(5) (certificate of nonexistence), MCL 15.234 (fees and estimates), MCL 15.235 (response deadlines and extensions), MCL 15.240 (appeals and civil actions), MCL 15.240a (fee appeals), and MCL 15.244 (segregation of exempt material).

Michigan forfeiture provisions referred to for the civil-action structure: the controlled-substances forfeiture provisions, MCL 333.7521 et seq., and the general criminal forfeiture provisions, MCL 600.4701 et seq. Both contemplate a civil action filed by the prosecuting attorney in the circuit court, with its own docket number.

Documents relied on: the FOIA request dated June 27, 2025 and its fax receipt; the Notice to Extend Response Time dated 7-2-25 bearing request number 25-129, reproduced with the 25-129 record; the response letter dated July 17, 2025; the Notice of Denial for Request No. 25-139 bearing a signature-line date of 7-18-2025; and the Delta County Board of Commissioners letter dated August 20, 2025 signed by Chair John Malnar. All are reproduced, with requester identifiers removed, in the document list on this page.

Comparisons drawn from other records in this archive: FOIA 25-129 (arraignment-to-disposition times, certified nonexistent and then priced at $2,931.12), FOIA 25-133 (annual screening data produced, monthly counts priced at $2,815.20), FOIA 25-134 (dismissed-case count certified nonexistent after a volume extension), FOIA 25-136 (plea-agreement counts certified nonexistent), FOIA 25-137 (average charge-to-disposition time certified nonexistent after a volume extension), and FOIA 26-20 (aggregate case totals produced).

What would move this forward

The productive next step is not another request to the prosecutor's office. It is a request to the custodian that cannot describe a forfeiture as a document it does not keep: the Delta County Circuit Court clerk. A civil docket index for calendar year 2024, filtered to forfeiture actions in which the county or the people were the plaintiff, would produce the docket numbers, filing dates, and dispositions that 25-139 asked for. Those are existing court records, and a clerk's index is the cheapest possible form in which they exist.

A second route runs through the money. If forfeited property was sold, the proceeds passed through county accounts, and a request to the treasurer for 2024 forfeiture receipts and disbursements would show whether any property was liquidated at all. A year with no forfeiture proceeds is a meaningful answer, and it is one the prosecutor's office is not the only source for.

A third route is narrower and stays with the office. Rather than asking for the forfeitures, ask for the office's written procedures governing forfeiture — who authorizes a filing, what file is opened, where the disposition of property is recorded, and how the office reconciles a forfeiture against the outcome of the criminal case. That is a request for existing policy documents, and it would establish whether the office has a forfeiture recordkeeping practice at all. If it does, the practice describes where the records are. If it does not, that absence is itself the finding.

All three requests are catalogued in our internal working list, with the specific wording and the record that supports each one.

Documents

These are redacted copies prepared for publication. Requester names, home addresses, personal phone numbers, and email addresses have been removed. Unredacted originals are not hosted on the public web server.

Related FOIA requests

• FOIA 26-292 — FOIA 26-292: The office used the requester's own cost-saving clause to withdraw the request, then offered to grant it if he removed the clause (Granted in part, denied in part — no records produced; the office conceded the data exists and refused the aggregate on the ground that the requester's own scope limitation excluded it, October 25, 2026)
• FOIA 26-291 — FOIA 26-291: The office answered a request for a privilege log with nine document titles — and cited a subsection of the FOIA that does not exist (Granted in part — a nine-row title-and-date table supplying two of the eleven requested fields, no count, and a citation to a subsection of MCL 15.243 that does not exist, October 25, 2026)
• FOIA 26-290 — FOIA 26-290: The office refused the victim-services records because it says you already have them — from a packet that contained none (Refused — five paragraphs labelled “granted” but zero pages produced, on the authority of a prior production that contained no responsive documents; the sixth paragraph received no disposition, October 25, 2026)
• FOIA 26-131 — FOIA 26-131: Twenty case files, priced at $82.66 before a single page is copied (Granted in part — release conditioned on a $41.33 deposit; no records produced yet, April 17, 2026)
• FOIA 26-35 — FOIA 26-35: The office counted 52 pleas in 85 minutes — eight days after saying the same kind of aggregate did not exist (Granted — 52 pleas reported from the District and Circuit Court dockets, no fee quoted, no exemption cited, no pages withheld; the count is over-inclusive by the office's own admission, February 9, 2026)
• FOIA 26-34 — FOIA 26-34: The office denied a count of diversion cases by defining “diversion” down to a programme it does not run (Denied — certificate of nonexistence under MCL 15.233(1), Denial Form box 2 checked, on the ground that the only diversion programme in Delta County is juvenile diversion administered by the Probate Court; no exemption cited, no fee quoted, no waiver determination, February 9, 2026)
• FOIA 26-33 — FOIA 26-33: Asked to count deferred prosecution agreements, the office certified the total nonexistent and priced the underlying data at $9,093.33 (Granted in part and denied in part — the aggregate record denied as requiring creation of a new record, with a certificate of nonexistence and Denial Form box 2 checked; the underlying data granted subject to a $9,093.33 estimate, a $4,546.66 deposit and a 270-day production estimate; public-interest fee waiver left undetermined, February 9, 2026)
• FOIA 26-32 — FOIA 26-32: What the office's own memos say about the migration that broke its records — a 95-page production that answers its own denial (Granted in part, denied in part — five records produced across 95 pages, with only personal contact information redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(a); no fee quoted, February 6, 2026)
• FOIA 26-31 — FOIA 26-31: Asked how many crime scenes a prosecutor attended, the office listed eight documents and denied them as duplicative (Denied in full — refused as a duplicative request under Densmore v Department of Corrections, on the ground that the eight listed records were already produced in response to FOIA 25-267; Denial Form box 1 checked with the section 13 subsection left blank; no aggregate figure supplied and no fee quoted, February 6, 2026)
• FOIA 26-30 — FOIA 26-30: Eight documents, one number, and a Densmore refusal built on a premise the record does not fully support (Denied — no aggregate total produced; eight responsive documents identified but not reproduced under a Densmore prior-production rationale; no fee quoted, February 6, 2026)
• FOIA 26-29 — FOIA 26-29: A count of inherited convictions the office could not locate — priced at $1,033.33 for the work of counting (No count produced — office could not locate a record; underlying data granted subject to segregation and priced at $1,033.33 with a $516.66 deposit, February 5, 2026)
• FOIA 26-28 — FOIA 26-28: A headcount of cases open when the prosecutor took office — denied, then priced at $1,653.33 on an 800-file baseline (Denied in part, granted in part — no record states the headcount, with a certificate of nonexistence; underlying data granted subject to segregation and priced at $1,653.33 with an $826.66 deposit, February 5, 2026)
• FOIA 26-22 — FOIA 26-22: A conviction rate the office says does not exist, priced at $9,548 (Denied — record does not exist; $9,548 quote for the underlying files, January 30, 2026)
• FOIA 26-21 — FOIA 26-21: A count of convictions the office says does not exist — then a quiet amendment that changed the number behind the bill (Denied as a compilation — no count produced; fee of $9,548.00 quoted for underlying files; amended response revised the volume figure without explanation, January 30, 2026)
• FOIA 26-20 — FOIA 26-20: The aggregate case total, and the records that would let you count it (Denied — record does not exist, January 30, 2026)
• FOIA 25-279 — FOIA 25-279: The office granted the personnel and budget records on paper — then sent three invoices totaling $34,673.79 and none of the records (Granted in part on paper — dozens of records listed as enclosed and none enclosed; three cost itemizations totaling $34,673.79, November 25, 2025)
• FOIA 25-278 — FOIA 25-278: The office says it never tracked plea bargaining — then bills $23,146.66 for a 4,000-file review it says is already covered by another invoice (Granted in part — 62 trials produced from the calendar; plea-offer data certified not to exist; a $23,146.66 estimate the office says is moot if the twin invoice is paid, November 25, 2025)
• FOIA 25-277 — FOIA 25-277: No annual statistical report exists, the underlying data does, and the office prices it at $34,720 (Granted in part — no statistical report exists; the underlying data is granted at a $34,720 estimate built on a volume figure the office has never counted, November 25, 2025)
• FOIA 25-257 — FOIA 25-257: Three certificates of nonexistence, then a $19,840 bill to rebuild the data by hand (Denied — three certificates of nonexistence, with a $19,840 estimate to rebuild the same data by hand, October 31, 2025)
• FOIA 25-254 — FOIA 25-254: Two certificates of nonexistence, two documents produced, and a $74,520 itemization copied from an earlier request (Granted in part, denied in part — two documents produced, two certificates of nonexistence, and a $74,520 estimate identical to FOIA 25-244's, October 31, 2025)
• FOIA 25-244 — FOIA 25-244: Ten service slips, thirteen policy manuals, and a $74,520 quote (Granted in part, denied in part, October 10, 2025)
• FOIA 25-241 — FOIA 25-241: The special-prosecutor petition the office filed, and the 2024 memo that says it did not need another one (Granted in part, denied in part, October 10, 2025)
• FOIA 25-240 — FOIA 25-240: Officer use-of-force referrals, and the $1,863 bill for the one part the office would search (Granted in part, denied in part, October 10, 2025)
• FOIA 25-239 — FOIA 25-239: The Brady/Giglio list and how the office tracks officer credibility (Granted in part, denied in part, October 10, 2025)
• FOIA 25-234 — FOIA 25-234: Four lab reports, two certificates, and 26.4 grams where the press said four ounces (Granted in part, October 1, 2025)
• FOIA 25-202 — FOIA 25-202: No RFP, no bid, no purchase order — and the emails that show how the system was picked (Granted in part, August 18, 2025)
• FOIA 25-201 — FOIA 25-201: ProsecutorByKarpel contracts, invoices, and licensing (Granted in part, denied in part, August 18, 2025)
• FOIA 25-200 — FOIA 25-200: The software the office runs on — seven systems named, one of them retired in June 2024 (Granted in full, August 18, 2025)
• FOIA 25-197 — FOIA 25-197: A request for complaints against the office came back as the office's own civil-rights lawsuits (Granted in part, denied in part, August 13, 2025)
• FOIA 25-196 — FOIA 25-196: Audits of the office, 2019 through 2024 — five county financial statements produced, two fiscal years missing (Granted in part — five annual county financial statements produced; fiscal years 2022 and 2024 absent from the release; no exemption cited and no certificate of nonexistence, August 13, 2025)
• FOIA 25-195 — FOIA 25-195: Reports on the office's own work — four case-tracking reports produced, performance reviews certified nonexistent, county reports withheld as attorney-client (Granted in part and denied in part — ten documents produced; county reports withheld on attorney-client privilege; performance reviews certified nonexistent; $5,961.60 estimated, $2,980.80 deposit, 270 days, August 13, 2025)
• FOIA 25-194 — FOIA 25-194: Every email and text the Prosecutor sent in 2024 — a $63,028.80 estimate on a request the requester offered to narrow (Granted in part and denied in part — exemptions cited; $63,028.80 estimated, $31,514.40 deposit required, 270 days, August 13, 2025)
• FOIA 25-215 — FOIA 25-215: Three answers to one request — two certificates of nonexistence, a grant, and a $13,248 estimate (Granted in part, August 9, 2025)
• FOIA 25-180 — FOIA 25-180: Two boxes checked — the trial records both “already provided” and “do not exist” (Denied in full — certificate of nonexistence plus an exemption box checked; no fee, no pages produced, August 2, 2025)
• FOIA 25-137 — FOIA 25-137: The average time from charge to disposition, certified not to exist — after a ten-day extension for “voluminous” records (Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-136 — FOIA 25-136: The plea-agreement count the office certified does not exist — after taking an extension for the volume of records (Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-135 — FOIA 25-135: The office denied the 2024 trial summary as a record that “does not exist” — then produced eight case files on the next page (Granted in part — 8 case files produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-134 — FOIA 25-134: The dismissed-case count the office certified does not exist — after taking an extension for the volume of records (Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-133 — FOIA 25-133: The office certified the monthly count did not exist — then attached an annual one and offered to sell the underlying data for $2,815.20 (Granted in part — one annual screening table produced; monthly counts withheld; $2,815.20 quoted with a $1,407.60 deposit, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-129 — FOIA 25-129: Arraignment-to-disposition times the office certified do not exist, then priced at $2,931.12 (Granted in part — two items denied as nonexistent; $2,931.12 quote on the third, June 26, 2025)
• FOIA 25-118 — FOIA 25-118: Final case outcomes for January and February 2025 (Fee estimate issued, June 18, 2025)
• FOIA 25-94 — Prosecutor Case Outcome Statistics, 2021–2025 (Granted in Part, May 23, 2025)