Employee Who Deleted Late AG Stenehjem’s Emails Resigns

FARGO, N.D. (AP) – An employee in the North Dakota attorney general’s office who handled the deletion of the former AG’s email account has resigned.

Administrative assistant Liz Brocker, who helped clear the email account of former attorney general Wayne Stenehjem after he died in office, turned in her resignation letter on Friday.

A previous open records request showed that Brocker asked for the account to be deleted in an email to an information technology employee on Jan. 29, a day after Stenehjem died from cardiac arrest.

She wrote that the deletion was approved by Deputy Attorney General Troy Seibel.

State law says a public official cannot knowingly delete public records “without lawful authority.”