A bench trial for the superintendent of the Mercer County School District is underway.
The trial began on Thursday morning with opening statements from the prosecution and defense and witness testimony.
Farquer is facing four Class 3 felony counts of official misconduct and two Class A misdemeanors of computer tampering and unauthorized access to medical records. He was arrested last September, along with Mercer County School District IT workers Amberly Norton and Andrea Long, following an Aledo Police Department investigation into a complaint accusing district employees of illegally accessing students’ medical records.
Prosecutors allege that Farquer unlawfully accessed measles vaccination records and confirmed cases of hand, foot, and mouth disease in the school district, and then created a Google Drive spreadsheet that was shared with the nurses in the school district and another teacher who serves as a union representative for the teachers’ union after he directed the nurses in the school district to provide him with that information.
During Aledo Police Department Investigator Lindsey Kenney’s testimony on Thursday, she said Farquer was not the person who shared the document with the representative for the teachers’ union, but it was instead one of the nurses who did so. She went on to testify that she had not learned that information until “two days ago.”
Farquer’s defense team, which consists of six lawyers and two others, cited the Illinois School Student Records Act (ISSRA) during their opening statement. ISSRA includes medical records as part of a student’s permanent or temporary records and allows schools to share student health records with staff who have “a legitimate educational interest,” without parental consent, but other disclosures require consent.
During the prosecution’s opening statement, Mercer County State’s Attorney Grace Waldrup said Farquer never states an educational interest when requesting the records and obtained them by “insisting and bullying his way to the information.” She went on to say that Farquer took no protective steps for anyone within the district after accessing the information.
Farquer was originally charged with one Class 3 felony of official misconduct and Class A misdemeanors of unauthorized access to medical records and computer tampering at the time of his arrest. Those allegations said that he began accessing the records on Sept. 1, 2025. Additional charges filed against him earlier this year allege he also accessed them in May 2025.
In May 2025, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) issued guidance and updates for Illinois schools regarding a localized measles outbreak in southern Illinois. It urged schools to take proactive steps to prevent further spread. Schools were directed to closely review student immunization records and maintain “susceptibility lists” of unvaccinated or partially vaccinated students who may need to be excluded from school if exposure occurred.
Mercer County School Board President Bill Smock testified that school districts rely on superintendents to navigate health-related issues and emergencies and to carry out directives from IDPH.
The trial will continue Friday.
Farquer has been on paid administrative leave since his arrest.