The Lake County Sheriff’s Department and Munster Police are investigating a threat leveled against a Munster town attorney that resulted in the firm resigning from the town.
Munster Plan Commission Attorney Nicole Bennett told Sheriff’s officers that she was at the Lake County Government Complex between 1:30 pm and 3:30 p.m. June 18. When she left, she noticed a paper note under her windshield, according to a police report.
The note Bennett handed to the responding officer said “Get out of Munster,” the report said.
Bennett then told the officer that she and her husband, David Westland, are attorneys for Munster and that she didn’t know who would’ve left the note, the report said.
Munster Police Chief Steve Scheckel didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The Town on Tuesday in a release announced that Westland and Bennett’s eponymous Hammond-based firm resigned from Munster’s Plan Commission and Town Council. The town “will engage a law firm on a temporary basis while simultaneously reviewing law firms for permanent legal counsel,” the release said.
Their resignation letter, which the Post-Tribune obtained via an Access to Public Records Act request Wednesday, said “the physical and emotional wellbeing of our family is our focus and priority” and that they don’t want to distract from the town as it decides its position on whether to allow the Kenmara Technology Park developers to include a data center in its plans for the Lansing Country Club property. The letter also details a hostile relationship with Munster Councilman Jonathan Petersen, R-5, and claims that Petersen could be behind the threat made to Bennett.
“In almost 30 years of practice, we have been hired and trusted for the most complicated land use and litigation matters by the majority of municipalities in Lake County. We have been retained by both Republicans and Democrats because we offer legal advice without regard to partisan politics,” the letter said. “Contrary to the current narrative, we have never advocated for a data center or any other land use in the Town of Munster … Still, Mr. Petersen has continued a slanderous social media crusade to have us removed as attorneys for the Town of Munster which has culminated in threatening statements and intimidation toward us.”
Since the current Town Council assumed office, Petersen, according to the letter, has openly disparaged the couple in various public settings as well as contacted Westland & Bennett clients urging them to drop the firm. To mitigate the rancor and limit Petersen from dealing with Bennett and Westland directly, the council in June 2024 adopted a resolution that allowed only the Council President to talk to their office, the letter said and Councilman George Shinkan, R-1, confirmed with the Post-Tribune.
Most recently, Petersen accused Westland and Bennett of a conflict of interest with attorneys representing the Lansing Country Club developers, Saxon Partners out of Hingham, Massachusetts, which Westland and Bennett denied in the letter. When the subject came up at the June 15 Town Council meeting, the council approved the engagement letter with Westland & Bennett along with signing a conflict-of-interest waiver.
“… in the best interest of the Town, we are resigning as attorneys for the Town of Munster, effective immediately. We will work with our successor to ensure a smooth transition of the files,” the letter said. “To the remaining Town Councilors, former Town Councilors, Clerk-Treasurer, Controller, and staff that know the truth, we appreciate our working relationship over the last 10 years and wish you all the best.”
Petersen on Wednesday denied contacting Westland & Bennett clients and said that he thinks Westland needs to “recenter” his stance because Petersen’s concerns are professional, and he doesn’t believe they’ve been addressed properly.
“Westland works for Hammond, as does Kevin Smith, who represents the Kenmara project. Westland is getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the town, so if he’s negotiating with Kevin Smith, how rigorously is he going to defend it?” Petersen said. “Then Smith takes a back seat on the project and (Hammond attorney) Scott Yahne is brought on. Well, Yahne ends up in a dispute, so who does he hire? Westland.
“When an attorney has divided interests, that’s a conflict of interest; I went and got an ethics opinion from an outside attorney who laid out the facts, but Westland keeps saying the facts are wrong but won’t say why.”
Both Bennett and Westland declined comment, while Munster Town Council President Joe Hofferth, R-2, was unable to respond by deadline.
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Westland and Bennett aren’t strangers to political threats. Eric Krieg, a Munster Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Lake County Council in 2011 and Lake County Surveyor in 2012, attempted in 2017 to send Westland a “relatively sophisticated” incendiary device he made in his garage through the U.S. Mail after Westland in 2013 represented Mayor Tom McDermott Jr.’s brother Aaron McDermott in a defamation lawsuit, the Post-Tribune previously reported. The device, which detonated in a U.S. Post Office branch in East Chicago, injured a pregnant post office employee.
Krieg in 2019 was sentenced to 29 years in Federal prison as part of a plea agreement, the Post-Tribune previously reported.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.