Animal rights activist is found innocent of eavesdropping charge

Thursday, September 7, 2000

Daily Herald (Suburban Chicago)

By SEAN D. HAMILL

Kane County-based animal rights activist Steve Hindi does not like to call it vindication.

But a Kane County judge's ruling Wednesday finding Hindi not guilty of felony eavesdropping at the 1999 Kane County Fair has encouraged Hindi to continue his organization's method of trying to stop what it believes is animal abuse.

"We're going to continue to go after rodeos like those at the county fair," the Geneva businessman said. "And I'm going to start targeting the sponsors of those associated with the fairs."

The run-in that led to this week's bench trial before Judge James Doyle was nothing new for Hindi, 46, who has been arrested, charged and convicted before for his tactics at trying to stop hunting, rodeos and other events involving animals.

The case began on July 17, 1999, at the Kane County Fairgrounds in St. Charles when Hindi confronted two St. Charles police officers.

Prosecutors said that while Hindi was trying to show the officers photos of what he believed was animal abuse at the rodeo, he was also secretly taping the officers with a small tape player.

The charges were initially dropped in the case, but later refiled.

His trial this week was not a debate on whether or not Hindi was taping the officers – Hindi readily admits that – but whether the officers had an expectation of privacy since they were in uniform and working in a public place.

Hindi's attorney, Richard Halprin, said the state law Kane County prosecutors and St. Charles police used to charge Hindi should never have been applied because the officers were in uniform and in public. He said it was applied because Hindi had been targeted as an activist trying to stop the rodeo.

"As far as I'm concerned, the conduct of the Kane County state's attorney's office and the St. Charles Police Department in this case was reprehensible," Halprin said.

Hindi, who confronted Kane County State's Attorney David Ackemann in the courthouse hallway after the verdict, called prosecutors and officer in the case "thugs" and said the case built on "phony" charges made up to stop him from trying to shut down the rodeo.

Assistant Kane County State's Attorney Joe McMahon, who is in charge of the criminal division in the office, said the charges against Hindi "certainly were not trumped up."

"The evidence was based on both physical and oral testimony and a tape recording that was introduced into evidence," he said.

"It's common for people we prosecute to not like us and call us bad names," McMahon added. "But this was not a vendetta against Mr. Hindi. It was based on evidence presented to us."

St. Charles Police Chief Don Shaw said he didn't want to "take the time to dignify Mr. Hindi's comments," but he believed the case was worth prosecuting.

"Our officers don't make up the law, they're there to enforce it, and we did that like we do on any other case," he said.

Hindi is the founder and president of the group known as SHARK, for Showing Animals Respect and Kindness.

He said his group was never deterred by the criminal case and it has only encouraged him.

"What they've done is make me more voracious," he said. "I can't wait for more, more going after rodeos, going after abuse. I'm not going away."