ST. LOUIS • Police officials fighting to keep the public from seeing records of their investigation of the 2006 World Series ticket scandal are breaking the law and flirting with contempt of court, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union complained Wednesday.

A years-long legal battle added a new skirmish in court in St. Louis even though a judge ruled last year that the Board of Police Commissioners had no grounds to refuse disclosure.

At issue is the breadth of the use of tickets seized by police as evidence from scalpers. Some officers and supervisors were disciplined — but none fired — after about 30 tickets were used by relatives or friends and then quietly returned to the evidence room.

Last year, Circuit Judge Philip Heagney cited the state sunshine law and wrote in an order, "It is time for the Board to obey the law." He also wrote that the board "seems determined to keep the public from learning substantive information which has been uncovered."

Heagney said then that all internal affairs records should be made public. The department did not appeal the order.

In April, the board held a secret vote to close all personnel and internal affairs records connected to the investigation. Its lawyer, Mark Lawson, also recommended changes in the police manual to close all hiring, firing, promotion or disciplinary records "where personal information is revealed," according to documents revealed last week

The ACLU, which won Heagney's order, is fighting in another court to enforce it. Tony Rothert, legal director for the organization's eastern Missouri chapter, said the vote to refuse disclosure was illegal.

"It's after the records were requested and it wasn't done in an open meeting and they didn't say what exception they're closing it under," Rothert said. Public notice of the planned closing of records is required under the law, he added, suggesting, "It's fair to say that they're defying Heagney's order."

In a hearing Wednesday before Circuit Judge Mark Neill, Rothert warned that the vote could be in contempt of Heagney's ruling.

Last month, Lawson told a reporter that the department now makes an effort to separate internal affairs investigations into criminal and disciplinary parts in response to Heagney's ruling. But Lawson did not dispute that the department did not appeal Heagney's ruling that both must be turned over.

Mayor Francis Slay, who is one of the board members, did not respond to a request for comment on the 5-0 vote. The rest of the board, appointed by the governor, declined through a staff member to comment.

Lawson told Neill on Wednesday that the vote simply reiterated language already in the police manual. He also disputed Rothert's claim that the department had "acquiesced" to Heagney's ruling.

"There could be many reasons" why the board chose not to appeal, Lawson said, but added that he could not disclose what was discussed during the closed session.

"I do not agree with Judge Heagney's ruling, and I think it was incorrectly decided," he told Neill.

A CONTINUING FIGHT

Now in its fifth year, the legal battle involves the department, the ACLU and some individual officers. A Post-Dispatch lawyer also was present Wednesday as the officers' lawyer, Neil Bruntrager, tried unsuccessfully to get Neill to close the hearing to the public.

The investigation began after one of the arrested scalpers overheard officers talking about using the tickets, and complained.

In April 2007, the Police Board announced that eight employees would be demoted for one year: Sgt. Phillip Menendez and Officers Phillip Edmond, Michael Ehnes, Thomas Kitchell, Wendell Ishmon, Thomas Kranz, Steven Schwerb and Joseph Somogye.

In addition, a lieutenant, three sergeants and three officers faced lesser discipline. None of them was named.

Bruntrager disclosed Wednesday that 11 officers or employees — not the 30 plaintiffs listed anonymously in the lawsuit — are fighting for secrecy. They were disciplined or mentioned in the report.

John Chasnoff, an activist with the group Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression, originally sought the records. After he was rebuffed, the ACLU sued.

Heagney sided with Chasnoff in December of 2009 and again four months later when the department revealed there were separate files for internal use and possible prosecution.

Heagney said that the criminal investigation was incomplete and failed to address the original complaint — that officers had robbed a scalper of more than $2,000. Regardless, the judge said, both investigations were legally open.

He also ordered the board to pay Chasnoff $500 for "a serious violation of Missouri's Sunshine Law" and $3,600 in legal fees and court costs.

After Heagney's ruling, the police employees appealed, claiming that they were unaware of the suit and thus had no chance to weigh in.

The Missouri Court of Appeals agreed, allowing them to file their own suit — the matter now in front of Neill.

In and out of court, Bruntrager has argued that personnel records are exempt under the sunshine law. He also says the officers' privacy — primarily embarrassment over the many frivolous internal affairs complaints filed — trumps the public's right to know.

At times, Wednesday's hearing covered familiar ground — issues decided by Heagney, such as whether both types of reports are public. Neill wondered aloud whether granting the officers' request would, in effect, overrule a judge sitting two floors away.

Neill did not rule on an ACLU motion to toss out the case or the officers' request to participate anonymously, instead taking the issues "under submission."

All lawyers seemed to agree that the case ultimately will return to the appeals court for another decision on what a 2001 Missouri Supreme Court case involving the opening of internal affairs records, Guyer v. City of Kirkwood, actually means.

Reached Wednesday, Stephen Limbaugh Jr., author of that opinion, declined to comment. He is now a federal judge in St. Louis.