Published in the Edwardsville Intelligencer on August 23, 2025

By Jason Koch

Livingston residents are demanding answers from leadership after it was learned that an appointed village official was using an online background check service to look up information about people in town.

Nathan Hutson, the village's zoning administrator, was using the online service Instant Checkmate to research Livingston residents who faced ordinance violations. Hutson said he was only using the program as a reverse phone number lookup to help him reach Livingston property owners in violation of village ordinances. The service also provides criminal and financial histories, relatives, former addresses, and other information about the individual.

The village terminated Hutson's employment on Aug. 15, according to Livingston Mayor Rich Kovaly. Neither Kovaly nor Hutson made an official statement following the decision.

Hutson had been in his position with the village since 2022 and had been unanimously reappointed at the board's first meeting following the April 1 consolidated election.

Kovaly initially agreed to be interviewed following Hutson's termination, but ultimately declined to answer questions.

"I think it would be better for all parties involved," he wrote in an Aug. 18 email.

The termination followed the Aug. 14 village board of trustees meeting where multiple residents raised concerns about Hutson's use of the program and having access to personal information. Hutson was not present at the meeting.

"Nathan is absolutely overstepping these boundaries," resident Meagan Turley said during the meeting. Turley was one of the residents Hutson searched using the village's Instant Checkmate account. "I didn't have any prior notification that I was getting my information searched. ... You're supposed to be notified on something like that."

Also speaking during the meeting was Jessica Haines, the wife of police Officer Lewis Haines, another of the individuals who had been searched using the online program.

Jessica Haines told trustees she had contacted the Illinois State Police regarding the law for background checks.

"The way I understood it ... he should be held accountable in their eyes," she said.

She also expressed concern about the information Hutson had acquired.

"What am I supposed to think that he's got all my husband's information?" she asked. "There's no reason for that to happen."

"I just want to know what is his reasoning, why he's doing it, and for what purpose," Haines said to the board.

She also said she contacted Instant Checkmate and was told that if she hired a lawyer to subpoena the village's account, they would provide details about the time and date of the search and who ran the search.

"It is an actual background check," she said. "And it does provide a lot of in-depth information, much more than a simple ordinance officer needs. He is abusing his authority. He has abused his authority.... If you guy don't get him reigned in and under control, it's going to bring the whole village into it."

During the discussion, another member of the public, former Village Clerk Robin Winans, asked why a background check had been run on her.

"By all accounts, I have reason to file a lawsuit," she said. "It's against the law."

Winans then left the meeting, but Haines continued with her public comments. "Regardless of whether you consider this breaking the law, he obviously was wrong," she said. "If he doesn't get put in check and this gets investigated, and they do find some sort of misconduct or they feel like privacy has been invaded, at that point, that opens the flood gates for all these people who feel like he did them wrong. ... Maybe the village needs to start looking at the problem and take care of it ... before it takes you all down."

"We're going to discuss it," Kovaly said.

Concerns surfaced weeks earlier

The controversy first surfaced after former Village Clerk Robin Winans resigned on July 15 and raised concerns in a post on the Livingston Live wire Facebook page.

That was the first time the community had been made aware that the village was using the Instant Checkmate program to look up information about residents.

During a July 23 interview with The Intelligencer, Hutson and other village officials denied the allegation.

" I used that to get phone numbers for those people that I need to contact," Hutson said. "That is what they are calling a background check."

Hutson said he preferred to call those who owned property in violation of village ordinances before following through with written warnings and citations. That's why he asked village trustees to approve money for the Instant Check mate account.

But he admitted the program wasn't particularly helpful in the eight months he had been using it since receiving approval from the village board of trustees.

"Even the phone numbers that I get are usually disconnected, "he said.

Hutson also admitted during the July interview that no research was done prior to purchasing an Instant Checkmate account, which was paid for using a village credit card.

"It was the first one I saw, "he said.

Hutson also said at the time he did not believe the Instant Check mate service saved his searches, though during a demonstration of the program for both Village Attorney Jim Schrempf and The Intelligencer, it was discovered that the searches had been recorded. 

The history showed that 54 searches had been completed, though some names-including a then sitting village trustee had been searched multiple times.

Hutson also denied doing some of those searches, including that of the trustee, and said three other people with the village had access to the Instant Checkmate account. Those three people were Winans, former Village Clerk Lynne Best, and Police Chief Charlie O'Dell.

Of the other three people to have access to the program, only Best admitted to using it for any searches, and said she did not have an issue with the village using the program, stating in an interview with The Intelligencer that she did not believe the program was being used for background checks.

Best did admit to using the village's Instant Check mate account to run a search on herself that she then gave to her church in lieu of giving the organization the information needed to do its own background check. She denied using the account to look up anyone else.

Winans and O'Dell both denied ever using the program.

"The police department was not involved in, nor did it authorize, any background investigation using Instant Checkmate or similar consumer-based websites. The department does not use non-FCRA compliant services for any hiring, investigatory, or enforcement purposes," O'Dell wrote in a statement to The Intelligencer. "While we understand that a village-issued subscription to Instant Checkmate was available to certain administrative staff for informal use, that action was outside the scope of police department operations. At no point did our department make any decisions or take enforcement action based on information from that platform."

Both Winans and O'Dell had been searched using the Instant Checkmate account, neither of whom have had ordinance violations. Multiple other names on the list also did not appear to have had code violations.

It was unclear who had performed some of the searches. Nathan Hutson's name was on the account, but it was the village clerk's email that was used to log in.

"I didn't run anyone who worked here or has worked here," Hutson said.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request that was addressed to him personally, Hutson provided a list of 38 names, including the former trustee. Even so, the list did not account for eight additional searches, among them Winans, O'Dell, another well known community member, and five individuals from Texas.

Privacy and legal questions

Beyond the village's internal questions, the use of Instant Checkmate also raised concerns about whether the practice could violate state or federal privacy laws.

Instant Checkmate is one of several online services that allows individuals to look up any public information about other people.

"Our goal is to provide you with the most useful, detailed and important information on just about anyone," the Instant Checkmate website says. "Whether researching arrest records, phone numbers, addresses, demographic data, census data, or a wide variety of other information, we help thousands of Americans find what they're looking for each and every day."

But the site also has a disclaimer that appears when visiting the site.

"Learning the truth about the history of your family and friends can be shocking, so please be cautious when using this tool," it says. "We provide information (criminal record, address, phone number, property, civil judgment, and more) that can be used to satisfy your curiosity, protect your family, and find the truth about people in your life."

Use of the service requires agreeing to both the privacy policy and terms of use, and that a user will not use Instant Checkmate to make decisions about hiring or for use in researching potential volunteers. It also says the site cannot be used "for any other purposes that would require FCRA compliance."

Village Attorney Schrempf says he does not believe the village violated any laws with its use of Instant Checkmate.

"I have policy concerns that the use of that system should be limited to avoid concerns citizens may have with the dissemination of the information available on the Internet," Schrempf said in an Aug. 13 email to The Intelligencer.

Schrempf suggested during the July 23 interview that the village find a "more limited Internet search" to find a system that provided only phone numbers, and not other sensitive information.

"Find a system that would give us simply contact information and not open us up to 'well did you use it to check my financial history or my criminal history?" Schrempf said during the interview. "Even if that's not illegal, it could be something that a citizen would resent, or feel is unethical for us to be doing."

Schrempf later clarified that he was not suggesting any wrongdoing on the part of the village.

The Illinois Attorney General's office declined to comment for this story and referred The Intelligencer to the Madison County State's Attorney's office. The State's Attorney's office said it generally has no involvement in the operation of municipal government and does not provide legal guidance or opinions other than the legal service it provides to county officials. Neither office said whether it had received any complaints from Livingston.

"Individuals who believe they are the victim of a crime may make a report to a law enforcement agency which has jurisdiction. If the law enforcement agency conducts an investigation and determines the reis probable cause for criminal charges, the agency can make a referral to this office, requesting prosecution," the office said in a statement to The Intelligencer.

In addition to the lawsuit Winans threatened during the Aug. 14 board meeting, others have also threatened to bring legal action against the village. As of Aug. 21, no formal complaints had been filed.

Village officials face scrutiny

Despite the potential legal consequences of using Instant Check mate, it does not appear that Hutson or any other village official sought legal guidance before approving its use.

"I did not offer any advice on how to use the Internet to find information on individuals, "Schrempf said in an email to The Intelligencer.

During the Aug. 14 village board meeting Trustee Debbie Atwood said Hutson was not using the account as the board had intended when it granted approval.

"It was not to be used like that," Atwood said, though there was no oversight in place, the mayor admitted during the discussion.

Jim Cuppett was concerned about the lack of oversight from village officials. Cuppett was appointed to fill an open position on the board later during the meeting.

"At the time it was happening, did you know exactly what (Hutson) was doing? "Cuppett asked Kovaly, the mayor.

"No, I don't know what he was doing," Kovaly responded. "I trusted him."