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Berkshire County DA's General Counsel Resigns After Dispute Over Releasing Documents

A courthouse in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Berkshire District Attorney's Office
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A top lawyer in the Berkshire County District Attorney's office resigned this week after a dispute involving the release of public documents.

The Berkshire Eagle requested copies of emails between the DA's office and Bard College at Simon's Rock concerning a student's allegations that she was the victim of a racially-motivated assault.

Jeanne Kempthorne, the district attorney's general counsel, said DA Andrea Harrington told her not to release the emails.

"I was peremptorily told that we would not provide them and it was not grounded in any legal reasoning. It was just by fiat," said Kempthorne.

Kempthorne, who was also the DA's records access officer, said there was no legal reason to withhold the emails. So she sent them — appropriately redacted, she said — to the newspaper last Friday.

By Monday, Kempthorne had decided to resign.

It wasn't just about this one incident. Kempthorne said employees who had been part of Harrington's political campaign had the DA's ear in a way the legal staff did not.

Through a spokesperson, Harrington's office denied any wrongdoing, and said it does not comment on personnel matters.

Nancy Eve Cohen is a former NEPM senior reporter whose investigative reporting has been recognized with an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for Hard News, along with awards for features and spot news from the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA), American Women in Radio & Television and the Society of Professional Journalists.

She has reported on repatriation to Native nations, criminal justice for survivors of child sexual abuse, linguistic and digital barriers to employment, fatal police shootings and efforts to address climate change and protect the environment. She has done extensive reporting on the EPA's Superfund cleanup of the Housatonic River.

Previously, she served as an editor at NPR in Washington D.C., as well as the managing editor of the Northeast Environmental Hub, a collaboration of public radio stations in New York and New England.

Before working in radio, she produced environmental public television documentaries. As part of a camera crew, she also recorded sound for network television news with assignments in Russia, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba and in Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia.
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