Clerk's employee arrested for taking records home... to shred

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that, "A veteran Cook County Circuit Court employee was ordered held in lieu of $750,000 bail Saturday for allegedly taking court files from work and then shredding them at her kitchen table."

Rumman Hussain writes that Jeannette Neibauer was arrested at the Daley Center last Friday. At the time of her arrest, Neibaurer was assigned to a courtroom in the Law Division (and, no, the paper did not specify which room).

Hussain's article also does not specify what records were allegedly shredded. Were whole files really removed from the courthouse? Or (and this seems more likely if my understanding of work flow patterns is not too long out of date) does this loss involve the removal of documents that were to be coded for the Clerk's computer docket system before physical filing?

Every Cook County attorney who's handled a civil appeal recently has a story or ten about documents missing when it came time to assemble the Record on Appeal. The allegations against Ms. Neibaurer, if true, may solve some of those mysteries.