MT. STERLING, ILL. -- A Mt. Sterling attorney is named in a complaint from a state regulatory agency that accuses him of hiring a Quincy company to post videos of an undercover drug purchase involving his client on the Internet.
Jesse Gilsdorf, 46, is named in a Feb. 6 Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission Complaint. It says that Gilsdorf took videos of a client purchasing drugs from a drug task force on the popular video sharing Web site and on Facebook.
Pike County resident Angela Fulmer hired Gilsdorf to represent her in a 2011 drug case that saw her charged with unlawful delivery of a controlled substance.
As part of the discovery in the case, Gilsdorf received a DVD copy of a video on March 4, 2011 showing his client delivering drugs to a confidential source of the Illinois Drug Task Force.
Gilsdorf is accused of hiring John Hamann of Pyrographics in Quincy for $233 to post the video to YouTube, which the ARDC says violates the rules of criminal proceedings. The videos were titled “Cops and Task Force Planting Drugs – Part 1” and “Cops and Task Force Planting Drugs – Part 2.”
“Any materials furnished to an attorney pursuant to these rules shall remain in his exclusive custody and be used only for the purpose of conducting his side of the case, and shall be subject to such other terms and conditions as the court may provide,” the Illinois Supreme Court rules say.
The videos reveal the identity of the task force’s confidential source,
Gilsdorf is also said to have placed links to the video on Facebook, according to the complaint. The videos received about 2,000 hits on YouTube before State’s Attorney Frank McCartney filed a motion to sanction Gilsdorf. Pike County Judge Michael Roseberry ordered the video removed from the Internet.
Gilsdorf has served as an attorney in high-profile cases, including the representation of Bud Niekamp in a quo warranto suit.
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