State orders police to release correspondence with Freeh

State officials today ordered the Pennsylvania State Police to release correspondance with Louis J. Freeh and three people who worked for his firm.

The decision by the Office of Open Records gives officials 30 days to provide records sent to and received from Freeh, his General Counsel Omar McNeil, and investigators Tom Cloud and Greg Paw.

Police originally denied the March 25 request, claiming it wasn’t sufficiently specific. But OOR Appeals Officer Kyle Applegate found that it provided enough information for officials to locate correspondance with the four named individuals.

Applegate sided with police regarding broader requests for records between police and unspecified employees of Freeh’s law and investigative firms, the law firm of Pepper Hamilton, and other individuals whose emails contain the freehgroup.com domain.

Since police didn’t claim that any of the records were exempt, the OOR ordered their release.

“The OOR acknowledges that it is often a struggle to determine whether a request for records is sufficiently specific,” Applegate wrote. “However, agencies must remember the intent of the RTKL: ‘to empower citizens by affording them access to information concerning the activities of their government.'”