Message Pierce County prosecutor wanted secret is revealed

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) _ Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist has fought for years to keep a text message he wrote to an employee confidential, arguing that it was a personal communication not related to the work of his office. But the employee disagrees and has revealed its contents in a letter to the county.

The News Tribune of Tacoma reports (http://is.gd/EB9Dbq ) that Lindquist's 2011 text to former deputy prosecutor Mary Robnett directed her to have ``allies'' comment online on a story concerning the prosecutor's office. The newspaper obtained Robnett's letter through a Public Records Act reques.

In it, she tells an attorney for the county that she believes the message, which Lindquist sent from his personal phone, relates to public business and should have been disclosed.

Lindquist has been involved in a long-running public records fight with a former sheriff's detective. The state Supreme Court has ordered him to disclose any messages on his personal phone that were work-related, but Lindquist's attorney told the newspaper that the message to Robnett was political in nature, rather than professional.