From the Tribune:

State worker fired for leaking report, attorney says
Ex-worker says he exposed corruption
By David Kidwell | Tribune staff reporter
November 1, 2007

A longtime state employee fired for leaking an internal investigative report critical of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration is seeking his job back on grounds that he acted to expose corruption, his attorney said.

Matthew Magalis, an $82,000-per-year administrator in Illinois' social services agency, filed an appeal Tuesday asking the state's Civil Service Commission to reverse his Oct. 10 dismissal.

According to state charging documents filed as part of his appeal, Magalis is accused of leaking to Chicago Tribune reporter Christi Parsons a "highly confidential" internal report about a co-worker caught in 2006 doing political work for Blagojevich on state time.

Magalis admitted to investigators that he retrieved the internal report from a locked cabinet with a key he took from a co-worker's desk drawer and then faxed a copy of the report to Parsons from a nearby copy center, the documents allege.

Carl Draper, Magalis' Springfield attorney, described his client as a whistle-blower who acted within his authority to expose information that was being kept secret for the wrong reasons.

"No employee should be fired because they are suspected of exposing corruption," Draper said.

State officials declined to discuss the case because of the pending litigation.

Magalis came under scrutiny after an Oct. 18, 2006, Tribune report detailing the findings of an internal investigation of Khalil Shalabi, an administrator at the state's Tinley Park Mental Health Center accused of organizing a Blagojevich fundraiser on state time. The Tribune account, by Parsons and fellow state government reporter Ray Long, was based on what the story described as a "confidential report obtained by the Tribune."

The story detailed the Shalabi investigation, conducted by the state's Office of Executive Inspector General, which recommended that Shalabi be fired. Shalabi left his $78,000-per-year job with the state in December 2006, according to state records.

The Tribune report prompted a second investigation by the inspector general's office, this time to find the leak.

Magalis was fired by his bosses at the Illinois Department of Human Services based on the findings of the leak probe, which accused him of theft of state property, unauthorized use of keys, unauthorized dissemination of information to the news media, conduct unbecoming a state employee and dissemination of confidential material without authority.

Draper said the report his client is accused of leaking had wide distribution within state government, and he may seek testimony from Parsons in an effort to prove that the document was not confidential.

"It is possible she got it from a half-dozen different sources," Draper said. "It's kind of hard to keep this stuff quiet, as it should be. We asked [state officials] for the names of everyone who had access so we could examine whether they were treating this report as confidential. They have denied us that information."

Magalis, 39, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Records show that he had worked in state government since 1993.

Parsons, who now works in the Tribune's Washington bureau, declined to comment on the case. "I don't discuss confidential sources," she said.

Hanke Gratteau, the Tribune's associate managing editor for metropolitan news, said it is the newspaper's policy to neither confirm nor deny the identities of confidential sources.

"We don't discuss our sources of information with anyone," Gratteau said. "We could not perform our duties as journalists if we did."

Magalis' first hearing before the Civil Service Commission is set for Nov. 27.