When Lehighton School Director Walter C. Zlomsowitch spotted the envelope bearing the seal of Schuylkill County, he figured it was something about his recent real estate transaction.

“I opened it up and I’m like, what?” he recalls.

The letter was one of 9,146 mailed on April 5 to let people know their names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and other sensitive information may have been exposed during alleged unauthorized searches done using the county’s sophisticated database software, LexisNexis.

The two women accused of doing the searches are also among four who are suing county Commissioner George F. Halcovage Jr. of sexual harassment and sexual assault beginning in 2012, the year Halcovage was first elected.

The two are currently suspended without pay.

Zlomsowitch got his letter on Saturday.

He made some phone calls, and learned the extent of the searches.

In Pottsville, Carolyn Heiser-Wood got her letter at about the same time.

Heiser-Wood initially thought the letter had to do with her recent activity involving courthouse offices.

“My mother had passed, and I had refinanced my home,” she said.

Then when I first opened it, I was like, really?” she said.

Heiser-Wood is concerned with the letter’s lack of details about the searches.

“It did not say when the breach was,” she said.

The alleged searches, of about 300 people, have revealed the personal information of not only the search subjects, but of their friends and neighbors, which LexisNexis provides. That’s why the 300 searches may have compromised 9,146 people.

Commissioners on March 9 hired Experian for a total of $277,894 to notify the people.

“One year of free credit monitoring?” Zlomsowitch said. “How do you know what they did with this information? What if something happens two or three years from now?”

Heiser-Wood said she’s unsure whether she’ll accept the free credit monitoring as she already has her accounts protected.

Zlomsowitch is angry the women have not been fired.

“They don’t even do the right thing and terminate them? What they did was illegal,” he said. “I’m angry that the right thing wasn’t done.”

A motion on March 9 to fire the women failed when Commissioner Gary J. Hess opposed the move, Halcovage abstained, and Commissioners Chairman Barron L. Hetherington voted in favor.

The women who filed the lawsuit against Halcovage on March 16, 2021, are identified only as Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2, Jane Doe 3, and Jane Doe 4.

However, through a series of public comments made by citizens and Hess, the two accused of the searches have been revealed as Tax Claim Director Angela Toomey and Assistant Director Denise McGinley-Gerchak.

The lawsuit names as defendants Halcovage, along with County Administrator Gary R. Bender, and assistant county solicitor Glenn T. Roth Jr., interim Human Resources Director Doreen Kutzler and current Human Resources Director Heidi Zula.

Halcovage has denied the allegations.

Heiser-Wood questions the county’s motive for the accusations against Toomey and Gerchak.

“I think this is a wild-goose chase,” she said. “I think the whole thing is retaliation.”

“Would this be going on if there was no (federal lawsuit) case? (The searches) were in the scope of their jobs,” she said.

“Their focusing in on these two girls at this particular time … it’s probably all legitimate, but they’re trying to make it look not legitimate,” Heiser-Wood said.

Zlomsowitch, though, remains angry, and has questions.

“I think it’s a shame that with what’s going on with Halcovage that he doesn’t resign,” he said.

Zlomsowitch also described Toomey and Gerchak as “criminals.”

“And the $270,000. What else could that money have been used for?” he said. “Should I get lifetime monitoring? Why was nothing done?”