Knox County Sheriff Don Henery had sent a letter and attempted to get on the agenda for a new investigation his office has opened, concerning the recent request for him to discharge employees, courthouse security and other recent topics.
Sheriff Henery sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors, indicating that his office would be opening an investigation the “circumstances involving courthouse security, to determine whether discharging the employees is appropriate.”
Henery indicated that the “Sheriff cannot rely upon the opinions or conclusions of the Special Knox County Attorney” and has requested information from the Supervisors; David D. Begley, Special Knox County Attorney; Eric Hagen, Deputy Special Knox County Attorney; Applied Connective Technologies, and the Knox County Clerk.
The Sheriff then lists a host of items from Applied Connective Technologies that were used to determine Begley’s previous conclusions, including data involving users and permissions, backups, audit trails of user actions, including names, IP addresses, actions and details of people logged into computers that were allegedly used to listen in on closed session discussions in the Knox County Supervisors room.
Begley had included the Applied Connective Technologies report in his special report to the Supervisors prior to Begley’s request to have Henery discharge Deputy Dan Henery and 911 Coordinator Heather Kienow; but Sheriff Henery’s request may involve more detail than was provided.
Also requested from the remaining named folks:
Recorded interviews and transcripts;
* 30,000 pages of emails (7 boxes) in digital format that were provided to other investigators;
* Recorded transcripts of Matt Fischer, Betty Boggs and JoAnn Fischer;
* Video from the boardroom;
* Photographs of the microphones in question and the toggle on/off/skill switches mentioned;
* Dispatcher and jailor timesheets from October 2024 to May 2025.
According to the minutes from the Board’s meeting on December 24, Sheriff Henery had requested the item to be put on the agenda for the meeting, and that it wasn’t included.
County Clerk JoAnn Fischer, again, according to the minutes, said that Attorney Mark Fahlleson had directed County Clerk Fischer not to include the request on the Board’s agenda until NIRMA (the county’s risk management agency) had a chance to review the request.
She said NIRMA didn’t have time to review it, since they were closed for three days during the holiday week because of the Federal proclaimed
three-day Christmas holiday.
Fischer said she had contacted the Board and Henery to let them know the request would not be placed on the agenda.
It was not indicated when NIRMA would finish its review, or if Henery’s item would be considered for a future agenda.