Fox Lake security cameras captured elected official exposing himself at village hall in 2019

A Fox Lake village trustee was captured on camera exposing his buttocks to one or more village employees inside village hall in October of 2019, but officials call the act "unfortunate" and say there was nor will be any disciplinary response.

In the video, obtained by the Daily Herald through a Freedom of Information Act request, Trustee Ron Stochl is captured briefly bending over and showing his bare behind to one or more village staff members. Then, Stochl pulls his shorts back up and turns around with a smile on his face before apparently speaking to one or more people off camera and exiting the building. The video, which was recorded Oct. 2, 2019, does not contain audio.

After acquiring the video this week, the Daily Herald reached out to Stochl for comment and did not receive a response.

The Daily Herald also reached out to Mayor Donny Schmit, Police Chief Jimmy Lee and several village staffers. Schmit sent a reply on behalf of village leaders and called what happened an "irrelevant and unfortunate incident."

"The trustee regrets his behavior and there have been no further incidents," Schmit said. "The incident was not something we condone and was handled confidentially with those involved, as would any other personnel matter."

"No special treatment was given because a trustee was involved," Schmit added.

Stochl's act wasn't publicly known until it was mentioned unexpectedly during an unrelated court hearing last month in the Melodie Gliniewicz criminal case.

At the Jan. 24 hearing, Gliniewicz's lawyers were seeking to unearth documents that would shed light on what led to the termination of former Fox Lake Village Administrator Anne Marrin, who is credited with discovering the late Fox Lake police Lt. Joe Gliniewicz's financial misdeeds.

During the hearing, Gliniewicz's lawyers called seven people associated with the village to the stand, showed them documents they believed were related to Marrin's termination and asked questions that uncovered more information and additional documents.

One of the documents the lawyers had was an email that contained a screenshot of a computer showing a list of files. One of the lawyers asked a village staffer about one of the files, which was labeled with trustee Stochl's name.

The village employee said the file was a surveillance video clip of Stochl exposing himself to a village staff member in a hallway at village hall.

"We regret the Gliniewicz hearing brought up this irrelevant and unfortunate incident that happened in 2019," Schmit said in his statement to the Daily Herald.

Schmit said the only reason the video clip was still on a village computer server was because it was part of an investigation.

Schmit did not address questions from the Daily Herald asking for details of that investigation, including whether it included the village's police department.

Besides the video, the only document the village submitted to the Daily Herald as part of its response to the Freedom of Information Act request was a heavily redacted letter Schmit sent to Stochl dated Dec. 3, 2019.

In the letter, Schmit refers to a Nov. 6, 2019, meeting in which he, Marrin, another village staffer and Stochl met to discuss complaints made regarding Stochl's behavior.

"You denied each allegation, even the ones where you were on audio and videotape," Schmit wrote to Stochl in the letter. "If you continue to engage in this behavior, I will not have any choice but to seek further action from the Village Board."

Schmit said that as far as the village is concerned, the matter is closed.