Va. Tech newspaper sues over denied FOIA request
Section: Entertainment
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Virginia Tech's student newspaper is suing the West Virginia State Police to obtain documents related to the investigation of a graduate student's disappearance in September 1998.
The lawsuit filed by Educational Media Co., operator of The Collegiate Times, seeks to enforce a Freedom of Information Act request for records on missing architecture student Robert Kovack.
The 24-year-old Kovack told friends he was heading home to Rivesville, Marion County, to visit his parents and attend the West Virginia University football game against Maryland. His abandoned Geo Tracker was found along U.S. 19 four days later, about a half-mile north of the National Park Service's Canyon Rim Visitor Center.
At the time, police said the area around the vehicle indicated no crime or struggle.
Dog teams, Park Service rangers and Kovack's family and friends from Blacksburg, Va., helped in the search, which included door-to-door visits to homes along the canyon and stops at campsites, where flyers were distributed.
State Police searched by helicopter and whitewater rafting companies helped examine the New River.
Last October, State Police denied The Collegiate Times' request for records, citing the ongoing investigation. The newspaper initially filed a FOIA request in January and later resubmitted it with additional documents.
In denying the FOIA requests, State Police said "the complete report" was covered by an exemption to the law, according to the May 19 lawsuit filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court.
Kelly Furnas, the newspaper's editorial adviser, said State Police had said that the Kovack case had no active leads.
"It was a cold case, and yet when we submitted the FOIA request, the response was that it was part of an open investigation. And those two things contradict each other," Furnas said.
Furnas said he was surprised at the denial because State Police officials were extremely helpful during earlier telephone interviews for a story published May 7 on the disappearance.
"There were a lot of theories, suppositions and conjecture as to what happened or didn't happen to Robert Kovack," Furnas said. "If we had an any sort of documentation from the police, we could have maybe closed some of those doors or open other doors that we were completely unaware of."
The lawsuit names Col. T.S. Pack, the State Police superintendent. Sgt. Mike Baylous, a State Police spokesman, declined comment Friday.
The lawsuit filed by Educational Media Co., operator of The Collegiate Times, seeks to enforce a Freedom of Information Act request for records on missing architecture student Robert Kovack.
The 24-year-old Kovack told friends he was heading home to Rivesville, Marion County, to visit his parents and attend the West Virginia University football game against Maryland. His abandoned Geo Tracker was found along U.S. 19 four days later, about a half-mile north of the National Park Service's Canyon Rim Visitor Center.
At the time, police said the area around the vehicle indicated no crime or struggle.
Dog teams, Park Service rangers and Kovack's family and friends from Blacksburg, Va., helped in the search, which included door-to-door visits to homes along the canyon and stops at campsites, where flyers were distributed.
State Police searched by helicopter and whitewater rafting companies helped examine the New River.
Last October, State Police denied The Collegiate Times' request for records, citing the ongoing investigation. The newspaper initially filed a FOIA request in January and later resubmitted it with additional documents.
In denying the FOIA requests, State Police said "the complete report" was covered by an exemption to the law, according to the May 19 lawsuit filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court.
Kelly Furnas, the newspaper's editorial adviser, said State Police had said that the Kovack case had no active leads.
"It was a cold case, and yet when we submitted the FOIA request, the response was that it was part of an open investigation. And those two things contradict each other," Furnas said.
Furnas said he was surprised at the denial because State Police officials were extremely helpful during earlier telephone interviews for a story published May 7 on the disappearance.
"There were a lot of theories, suppositions and conjecture as to what happened or didn't happen to Robert Kovack," Furnas said. "If we had an any sort of documentation from the police, we could have maybe closed some of those doors or open other doors that we were completely unaware of."
The lawsuit names Col. T.S. Pack, the State Police superintendent. Sgt. Mike Baylous, a State Police spokesman, declined comment Friday.
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