Oct 20, 2023 By Mike Jones staff Writer mjones@observer-Reporter.Com 7 min read

Washington County Prothonotary Laura Hough used the LexisNexis background check database to search prominent local and state Republican Party officials during the two years she had access to the system, according to a copy of the list obtained by the Observer-Reporter newspaper.

The voluminous list shows Hough searched 158 different people a combined total of 311 times. She was given credentials for the system from July 2020 until September 2022 to help her find addresses for parties involved in civil court cases that are filed at her office.

Nearly three-quarters of the people searched had some sort of civil court filings in Washington County Court of Common Pleas, although it’s unclear if all of those people were searched by Hough for legitimate purposes. The document shows that Hough mostly used the “advance person search (rollup)” option, but some of the searches included criminal history, voter registration, gun permits and driver’s license information, among other categories.

The LexisNexis system allows for detailed background searches of people that could reveal private information in some cases.

The Observer-Reporter obtained a copy of the list earlier this month and confirmed its authenticity with multiple county officials who have seen it. The newspaper had previously filed an open records request for the county to release the document – which was denied – when it was revealed in April that county officials revoked Hough’s LexisNexis credentials after accusing her last December of using the background system beyond the scope of its intentions to look up addresses.

A month after Hough won a seat on the state GOP committee during the May 2022 primary, the records show she searched five of the eight other local candidates who ran for six seats that were up for grabs. According to the search list, Hough looked up the names of Adam Hovanec, Denise Breide, Sean Logue and Teresa Coppola on June 16. The searches came nearly one month after the primary and one day after the Washington County Republican Party’s “All-Committee” information meeting at the fairgrounds on June 15.

Another GOP state committee candidate, Sonia Stopperich Sulc, was searched on June 23, although fellow candidates Thomas Uram, Ross Paullet and Scott Day were not listed on the database sheet. Hovanec and Sulc politely declined comment Thursday while Breide and Coppola did not respond to phone messages. Only Logue and Sulc had any previous civil matters in court.

Logue, who is the prothonotary’s solicitor and chairman of the Washington County Republican Party, said Thursday he still enthusiastically backs Hough, who is in her first term in office and running for reelection against Democrat Sandy Sabot in the Nov. 7 general election.

“As the county GOP chairman, I have no concerns whatsoever, and that’s as someone who was searched,” Logue said. “She’s an outstanding public servant and I’m sure there’s a legitimate reason for everything.”

But some who were searched are upset and concerned about what personal information Hough may have retrieved. Jason White, who ran for county commissioner in 2019 but lost in the Republican primary, was shocked to learn he was searched twice on Nov. 12, 2020.

“This is the first I’m hearing of my name,” White said when contacted by a reporter Thursday. “It is extremely troubling to hear these comments. I don’t know the facts of the whole situation, so I would like to learn more and find out what has happened. Clearly, I would like to know why my name was searched.”

He said he had a civil case before the court to evict a tenant on his property in June 2021, but that occurred nearly seven months after his name was searched. He had no active civil matters before the court at the time of the search, according to court documents.

“If my name was searched and it was not done appropriately, then that’s a major, major, major problem,” White said.

White and Hough briefly worked in Republican state Rep. Bud Cook’s office in 2017 after Cook was first elected. So, too, did Susan Klock, who worked as a legislative aide in Cook’s Harrisburg office until August 2020 and now works for other Republican state representatives in the state capital. Hough searched Klock under the “Pennsylvania House Republican Caucus” business tag eight times on Sept. 22, 2020, for unknown reasons.

The record also indicates Hough searched Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Lawrence Tabas of Philadelphia twice on Sep. 16, 2022, including once to look up his email. Neither Klock nor Tabas has any civil matters in Washington County.

Other searches in the list are curious, such as an inquiry into Dylan Lesnik, who attacked his girlfriend and stabbed his Coal Center neighbor to death in December 2020. The record indicates Lesnik’s name was punched into the criminal history search tab on March 15, 2021, which is the same day of his formal arraignment in which prosecutors announced their intention to seek the death penalty against him. Lesnik pleaded guilty to murder later that year and is serving a life sentence.

Hough even searched her own name through the system on Sept. 29, 2020. When the revelations of Hough’s searches came to light in April, she claimed it was “used for legitimate Prothonotary office activity.” She did not respond to an email Thursday seeking comment about the situation or how she was using the background check system.

Washington attorney Lane Turturice, who was searched Sept. 24, 2020, under the business profile tab, said he is not concerned about the situation since he uses the same LexisNexis subscription service database at his office.

“I pay for access for public records,” Turturice said. “There’s nothing earth shattering on any of that information. Nothing that anyone sees on those records that they could look up on someone’s court docket, or of that nature.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic caused delays in the courts, Hough was granted access to the system in the summer of 2020 with the hopes that it could help her office locate addresses to send civil documents. But it became clear to county officials last fall that the searches were instead yielding prominent names, prompting them to send Hough a letter last December notifying her that her credentials were being revoked.

“When the list was brought to our attention, there were names that jumped out at us that we knew were not legitimate searches by the prothonotary because they were individuals whose whereabouts were known to the prothonotary, such as certain elected officials and some county employees,” Commission Chairwoman Diana Irey Vaughan said Thursday.

Irey Vaughan and fellow Republican Commissioner Nick Sherman were searched multiple times on May 19, 2021, which was one day after that year’s primary election. They, along with Democratic Commissioner Larry Maggi and then-chief of staff John Haynes, were searched on June 18, 2021, one day after a contentious commissioners meeting in which Register of Wills James Roman and Clerk of Courts Brenda Davis lobbed various accusations against county officials during the public comment period.

Logue said Hough searched the commissioners on those two occasions in 2021 to get their home addresses in order to send “vital” documentation on the preferred contractor she wanted for her office’s new electronic file storage system. The commissioners ultimately selected a different vendor later that year.

“From what I understand, she was trying to serve them information concerning the proposals for the legal software that the commissioners were imposing on her,” Logue said, which he claimed were not being delivered to their county offices.

The county conducted a non-criminal investigation into Hough’s actions, the results of which have not been made public. Irey Vaughan said they may never know the full scope of what Hough’s searches netted since LexisNexis declined to provide them with that information.

“Unfortunately, we did not have access to a report that could show us with accuracy how many inappropriate searches were done,” Irey Vaughan said. “That is what made it impossible for us to provide a list of inappropriate searches.”

Although county officials have declined to make the search list public, Irey Vaughan said people who are concerned that they were searched can call the commissioners office at 724-228-6724 or email her directly at IreyDL@co.washington.pa.us.