Prosecutor with Auto-Brewery Syndrome departs; open-meetings lawsuit dropped

Palo Alto County’s decision to eliminate the job of a prosecutor whose license was suspended in 2023 has resulted in a severance agreement, a lawsuit alleging open-meetings violations, and a dispute over unemployment benefits.

“It’s all kind of a mess and that is all that I am going to say about it,” said County Supervisor Ronald Graettinger on Thursday.

County records indicate that last December, then-Palo Alto County Attorney Peter Hart announced that he was leaving office in February, long before his term was completed. Faced with the prospect of appointing Hart’s successor, the county’s board of supervisors opted to eliminate Amy Zenor from her position as the assistant county attorney so Hart’s replacement could pick an assistant of their own choosing.

The board then negotiated a severance agreement with Zenor, who had been recruited for the job by Hart after she was arrested for being drunk at an Iowa courthouse in 2022. Zenor, who claimed she suffered from the rare disorder Auto-Brewery Syndrome, in which a person becomes intoxicated without drinking, was later convicted and her law license was temporarily suspended.

According to the board’s minutes, the terms of the agreement with Zenor were discussed in closed session, after which the board approved it. Board members say the agreement called for the county to pay Zenor two months of wages once she left her job.

Zenor then applied for unemployment benefits, which the state granted. That led to an appeal by the county, which argued the payments did not take into account Zenor’s severance pay. The administrative law judge who heard the case ruled recently that Zenor’s payout from the county did not meet the state’s definition of severance pay and did not count as income that would offset any unemployment benefits.

By the time Zenor left her job, the county supervisors had interviewed applicants for the position of county attorney and chosen Anne Quail for the job. The board’s actions led to threats of litigation against the county by another applicant for the job, former federal prosecutor Edwin Kelly of Emmetsburg.

Kelly, 77, had appeared at a board meeting in January, giving the supervisors a written statement arguing that he exceeded all qualifications for the position of county attorney. In his statement, Kelly indicated “legal action for damages could flow from the illegal act of ignoring state law,” and stated that should the supervisors refuse to appoint him to the job and “later appoint a younger candidate,” an age discrimination lawsuit might be filed.

Kelly didn’t sue the county for age discrimination, but in February, his wife, Susan, sued the county with Edwin acting as her attorney. The lawsuit alleged a series of Open Meetings Law violations tied to the appointment of Quail as county attorney.

Last week, however, the Kellys agreed to drop the lawsuit. “We decided why tilt at windmills,” Edwin Kelly said Thursday.

As part of their lawsuit, the Kellys had alleged that during Edwin’s closed-door interview for the position of county attorney, board members asked him to sign a document so the board’s discussion of his application could legally be held in closed session in accordance with his request. Kelly says he refused to sign the document.

In speaking to the Iowa Capital Dispatch on Thursday, one county supervisor, Linus Solberg, described the situation as a “mess,” but he declined to elaborate, saying it all stemmed from the actions taken by Hart to hire Zenor in 2023.

“Oh, my God,” Solberg said. “This is such a mess … It’s an interesting story. Peter Hart is the one who first went and found Amy a job to come and work for Palo Alto County. He’s the one. He was our county attorney at the time. That’s the guy.”

Supervisor Craig Merrill agreed with that assessment. “Pete really wanted to hire her, and the board wanted to support Peter,” Merrill said.

Zenor claimed Auto-Brewery Syndrome 

State records show the Iowa Supreme Court reinstated Zenor’s law license in 2023 over the objections of the court’s own Attorney Disciplinary Board. The records also indicate Zenor was suspected of workplace intoxication as far back as 2018 and that alcohol was a concern when she worked for Clay County.

In January 2020, Zenor took over the position of Dickinson County Attorney. That same month, Zenor allegedly came to work with a cup containing some sort of beverage that was later analyzed by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and found to contain alcohol.

Dickinson County employees later told investigators the staff in the county prosecutor’s office had developed a code word, “Peaches,” to alert each other on days when Zenor’s behavior appeared to be erratic or concerning.  The office staff also staged interventions, but Zenor allegedly claimed she did not drink other than the occasional glass of wine with dinner.

Zenor’s law license was suspended in November 2022 after an incident at the Dickinson County Courthouse that resulted in her being charged with, and later convicted of, public intoxication. She resigned from office shortly after the charges were filed.

In July 2023, with her license reinstated, Zenor was hired by Palo Alto County to serve as the assistant county attorney.

Court records indicate Zenor has said she’s afflicted with Auto-Brewery Syndrome, an exceptionally rare medical condition that causes a person to become intoxicated without consuming any alcohol. People with ABS can become intoxicated when they ingest certain carbohydrates that ferment in their system along with intestinal yeast. According to some studies, fewer than 100 cases of ABS worldwide have been identified since 1952.