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In this episode, Gregg Owen, a former Cook County homicide prosecutor and author of Convergence, discusses a 1976 double murder prosecution and the events surrounding it, as he recounts them. Owen describes an initial courtroom assignment he characterizes as irregular, a period during which physical evidence went missing from a Cook County Sheriff's Office inventory space, and an incident in which he says he was offered cash to alter the substance of his closing argument. These accounts reflect Owen's personal recollection of events from the late 1970s and early 1980s and have not been independently verified by The Infamous Ex-Chief; listeners should understand this episode as Owen's own retelling, not as new investigative reporting by this platform. No claim is made here that any named individual committed a crime beyond what is reflected in the public record of the underlying case, which concluded with a guilty plea following an appellate reversal on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct.

Owen also discusses Operation Greylord, the federal investigation into judicial corruption in Cook County that became public in the 1980s, and his earlier career as a touring musician.

Host Scott Gardner is a former Ohio police chief and homicide detective who operates The Infamous Ex-Chief, an independent accountability and public records journalism platform.

Convergence is available through major booksellers and audiobook platforms. Gregg Owen can be found on Instagram at greggowen26 and at greggowen26.com.

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On September 3, 2026, Scott Gardner extended a settlement offer to the Village of Mantua in his pending mandamus action, which raises a question of first impression under Ohio law: whether an independent, multi-platform investigative journalist qualifies for the public records requester exception set out in Revised Code 149.43(B)(9)(c). The offer proposed to waive statutory damages, stipulate to undisputed facts, and allow the Eleventh District Court of Appeals to rule directly on the underlying legal question, without discovery or extended motion practice.

According to Gardner, counsel for the Village, Matt Markling, did not accept or reject the offer. Gardner states that Markling instead indicated the applicable local appellate rules already placed the matter on an expedited schedule. Gardner followed up in writing two days later requesting clarification of whether this reflected the Village's position. Five days after that, according to Gardner, Markling filed a motion for definite statement under Ohio Civil Rule 12(E).

Civil Rule 12(E) permits a motion for definite statement when a pleading is so vague or ambiguous that a party cannot reasonably prepare a response. This episode reviews the three grounds Gardner reports the motion raised: (1) that Gardner's petition listed a business address rather than a residential address, (2) that Gardner did not submit documentation establishing journalist status, including a federal tax identification number, and (3) that the petition did not identify where a required pre-filing complaint was served.

On the first point, Civil Rule 11 requires a pro se party to state an address for service, without specifying that the address be residential. Gardner states his business address is registered with the Ohio Secretary of State and has been used by Markling's office for service throughout the litigation without prior objection.

On the second point, Revised Code 149.43(B)(9)(c) requires that a written request state the requester's name and title, the name and address of the requester's employer, and a statement explaining how disclosure would serve the public interest. This episode does not assert that the statute requires additional documentation such as a federal tax identification number; that characterization is presented as Gardner's own reading of the statutory text, which listeners and legal readers may wish to verify independently.

On the third point, Gardner states that the Village's own motion cites the exhibit identifying where the pre-filing complaint was served, which Gardner contends is inconsistent with the claim that this information was omitted.

This episode also discusses a comparable, ongoing matter involving the Village of Garrettsville, where Gardner reports extending a similarly structured offer to attorney William Mason on September 4, 2026, addressing the calculation methodology for body camera record fees under Revised Code 149.43. As of this recording, Gardner states no response of any kind, including a motion for definite statement, has been filed by Garrettsville's counsel. This episode expressly does not characterize that silence as improper, obstructive, or equivalent to Mantua's response, and draws no inference about the Village of Garrettsville's position or intentions.

No court has ruled on the merits of the underlying journalist-exception question addressed in this episode, and no finding has been made regarding the propriety of any party's litigation conduct. Statements characterizing the motives, strategy, or billing practices of counsel for the Village of Mantua reflect Gardner's personal opinion and are clearly identified as such; this episode does not represent that Gardner has direct knowledge of any attorney's engagement terms, billing arrangements, or internal communications with a client.

Relevant statutory and procedural citations:

• Ohio Revised Code 149.43(B)(9)(c) (public records journalist exception)
• Ohio Revised Code 149.43(B)(1) (public records fee provisions)
• Ohio Civil Rule 11 (signing of pleadings; address requirement)
• Ohio Civil Rule 12(E) (motion for definite statement)

Underlying filings referenced in this episode are publicly available and are linked for independent review.

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Five episodes into the Rocky River investigation, this installment examines the special prosecutor's own investigative memoranda, obtained directly and reviewed in full for the first time on this platform.

The memoranda, addressed to Rocky River Law Director Michael O'Shea and dated August 17 and September 22, 2023, contain a legal analysis under six Ohio statutes: sexual battery (R.C. 2907.03), unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, gross sexual imposition, sexual imposition, importuning, and dereliction of duty. This episode focuses on the sexual battery analysis under R.C. 2907.03(A)(7), which addresses conduct by a person in a position of authority at a school where the victim is a student, and examines the evidentiary basis for the prosecutor's charging determination, including the exclusion of a walk-in witness statement and its intersection with Ohio's mandatory reporting statute, R.C. 2151.421.

The episode also reviews a signed personnel action by Rocky River Police Chief George Lichtman documenting a standards-of-conduct violation, and the personnel record following that finding through the officer's retirement roughly eight months later.

Statutory references: R.C. 149.43 (public records), R.C. 2907.03 (sexual battery), R.C. 2151.421 (mandatory reporting).

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One hundred twenty-seven days after a shooting at Valley Forge High School, Parma City School District still has not produced basic records about what happened before, during, and after that day. That case is now in mediation in the Ohio Court of Claims, four months after the original public records request was filed.

This episode is a comprehensive status update on every active public records fight currently underway, and a pattern emerges across all of them. Not one agency is contesting the substance of the request. Every one is arguing procedure instead.

Covered in this episode:

• Parma City School District: the timeline from the April records request through a rejected Court of Claims filing, a 41-page refiling, and ongoing mediation
• Village of Creston: a missing meeting recording and three contradictory explanations from the village solicitor
• Hiram Village: a mandamus action, a reversed position on record availability, an alternative writ from the court, and a disputed service-of-process argument built while the village was corresponding by email about the same case
• Village of Garrettsville: an alternative writ issued August 10, a September 4 response deadline, and the statutory question at the center of it, how Ohio law calculates the per-hour fee cap on body camera footage
• Austintown Police Department: a newly discovered billing error that mirrors the Garrettsville dispute almost exactly, three weeks later and in a different county
• A direct response to viewers who've suggested this litigation is being pursued for financial gain, including a breakdown of what pro se filing actually costs in time and money
• A preview of a new investigation building in Lake County following prior reporting on the Kirtland PD rooster arrest

This is public records law in practice: Ohio Revised Code 149.43, mandamus actions, and what it actually takes to hold a government agency to its statutory obligations without a lawyer.

Full case documentation, filings, and updates available at theinfamousexchief.com.

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A listener asked the question I get more than any other: does any of this reporting actually lead anywhere, or is it just content? So I answered it directly, using the Creston, Ohio fiscal officer case as the example.

Here's what's confirmed on the record. The Village of Creston has never given a public explanation for why their fiscal officer was disciplined or why she ultimately left. What exists is a written warning, a hearing process that raised real statutory questions, and a personnel file with a documented chain of custody problem. What's missing is the internal communication that would explain the rest, because the village hasn't produced it.

I don't fill that gap with rumor. I file public records requests under Ohio Revised Code 149.43, which come with statutory deadlines attached. When a village misses that deadline, or hands back records that don't add up, that's not speculation, that's the village's own conduct becoming the story.

This matter is now in mediation in the Ohio Court of Claims between me and the Village of Creston over records production. That means I have to be careful what I say publicly while mediation is active, not because there's nothing to say, but because the wrong words in the wrong venue can undercut a legal process built to get real answers. I also address where things stand with the Valley Forge school shooting records fight, another case people assume went quiet. It didn't.

This is what public records accountability journalism actually looks like in Ohio: slow, methodical, and built on a paper trail instead of a news cycle.

More investigations, document drops, and case updates: www.theinfamousexchief.com

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A whistleblower complaint to the FAA. A membership revoked over a phone call. Five years of self-represented litigation, a $45,000 sanctions order, and now a petition to the United States Supreme Court built partly on an allegation that a court transcript was altered. Scott Gardner sits down with the man known online as "Chardon Pro Se" to walk through the entire paper trail, the USPA governance manual, the board meeting minutes, and the moment a magistrate allegedly said on the record that the court believed there was fraud in his case, right before ruling against him. Every Ohio court that has ruled on this case has ruled against him. This episode lays out the record so you can decide where that leaves things.

Full documents at theinfamousexchief.com.

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Jeffrey Deskovic was 16 years old when police put him through a six to seven hour polygraph session with no attorney and no parent in the room. The man running that session later testified in court, under oath, that his method had a name: GTC. Get The Confession.

The DNA from the crime scene excluded him. The hair comparison excluded him. The jury convicted him anyway, and Deskovic spent the next 16 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

In this episode, Deskovic walks through exactly how a wrongful conviction happens from the inside: how a prosecutor gets a jury past physical evidence that doesn't match, what a medical examiner "suddenly remembered" right after the DNA results came back clean, and how a conflict of interest with his own public defender may have kept key evidence out of his trial entirely.

We also cover his history with Jeanine Pirro's office fighting his access to further DNA testing, and why he later testified against Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court confirmation over an appellate ruling that cost him seven more years behind bars.

Deskovic was freed by DNA testing in 2006. He's now an attorney running the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, which has helped free 15 wrongfully convicted people and passed 9 laws aimed at preventing this from happening to someone else.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• How a false confession gets built out of information fed to a suspect over six weeks
• Why DNA and hair exclusion didn't stop a conviction
• The prosecutorial and judicial decisions that kept Deskovic in prison through seven denied appeals
• What it took to finally get exonerated in 2006
• How the Deskovic Foundation decides which wrongful conviction cases to take

Support Jeffrey's work:
Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice
Website: https://www.deskovicfoundation.org/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deskovicfoundation/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thejeffreydeskovicfoundation/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jeffdeskovicfoundation

More investigations at theinfamousexchief.com

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Five episodes. One case. A question nobody in authority has answered.

In the finale of "The Worst Kept Secret in Rocky River," we trace what happened after former Rocky River police officer Michael Bernhardt's indictment — the third victim's attorney who called BCI the day the indictment dropped, the collapse from six warrants alleging rape and kidnapping down to three database misdemeanors, the sentencing where a judge told Bernhardt "you were basically living two lives," and the judicial release granted after less than 30 days served.

We go inside the BCI interview room. We lay out the DROP payout timeline. We document who at Rocky River received Special Prosecutor Michael Maloney's written recommendation to charge Bernhardt — and did nothing with it. We also examine the record of Rocky River's Law Director, Michael O'Shea, separate from anything alleged about Bernhardt himself.

This is not a political statement. It's a description of what the documents show.

Four agencies were given the chance to answer specific questions before this published. One did. Three didn't.

If you have information about this case, the tip form is at www.theinfamousxchief.com. Anonymous tips welcome.

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