MARK KIESLING: Source: Records seized at Lake sheriff's office

It's more than a rumor now — the feds have hit the Lake County Sheriff's Department with subpoenas, according to sources close to the investigation.

Anyone who read my Sunday column knows I talked about the possibility indictments were to be handed up soon, perhaps as soon as Thursday.

During the past few days, I have been in touch with people who are inside the investigation into the former sheriff's administration.

What I hear is that the FBI went into the Sheriff's Department on Friday and dropped subpoenas on the desk of Sheriff John Buncich for computers and records relating to the commissary fund and the drug task force.

Buncich, although a fellow Democrat, never has been an outspoken fan of former Sheriff Roy Dominguez, and is alleged to have given the feds carte blanche to taken whatever they wanted, down to the wallpaper.

Like he had any choice.

Buncich did not return calls, but I did speak with Dominguez on Tuesday.

"This is the first I've heard of this," he said, although the three subpoenas delivered allegedly contained the names of Dominguez, Marco Kuyachich and Joe Kumstar.

I asked Dominguez if he had retained an attorney for this, and he said, "No comment."

Kumstar, who was Dominguez's deputy police chief, already has been indicted by the feds, has pleaded guilty and is said to be singing like a canary.

Kuyachich is Dominguez's former police chief. He has been named by the feds as a co-conspirator but has not been indicted. Yet.

The new records subpoenaed are alleged to center on the commissary fund of the Lake County Jail and the department's drug task force.

Don't know much about what's going on with the task force, but I do know the sheriff and his top minions (like Kuyachich and Kumstar) controlled the money coming in from the commissary.

The commissary is where jail inmates buy stuff like smokes, combs, soap and the like. It takes in a boatload of money a year, a percentage of which used to go by law to the sheriff.

When some fathead sheriff in Indianapolis began stealing the money, that law changed, but that's a whole 'nother story, my friends.

Still, it behooves one to wonder what it is the feds are looking for by seizing the records for the commissary — they had to be given a road map by someone, and at this point I'm saying Kumstar is the prime guess.

He's gonna want to slash his prison term for selling machine guns he bought on county sheriff stationery then peddled on eBay.

One was used in a cop shootout in Mississippi, authorities said. Others were sent overseas, where they ended up in Afghanistan, where they could be used to kill U.S. troops.

Look for indictments Thursday or Friday, I'm told. Even if not, there's supposed to be more breaking next week.

The opinions are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at mark.kiesling@nwi.com or (219) 933-4170.