NIU Marketing Professor David Rink was fired effective Dec. 17, 11 days prior to a court decision dismissing evidence against him for the charge of two counts of felony forgery.

A five-member NIU faculty review committee recommended the firing of Rink after hearing testimony from officials reportedly from three schools. The committee looked into Rink’s attempts to work or actually having worked at one or more institutions under one or more aliases without previously seeking university permission.

Rink was “terminated for cause,” NIU President John LaTourette said. LaTourette said he could not comment on the issue because it concerns university personnel.

Earlier stories reported Rink worked in DePaul’s marketing department under the name of David Richard while employed at NIU. A Loyola University administrator also said a David Richard worked in the marketing department during the 1985-86 academic year. Northeastern officials said during that year, Rink, under the name of Richard, was scheduled to work in the marketing department but never did.

Evidence against Rink was dismissed from court Dec. 28 by DeKalb County Judge John A. Leifheit as a result of an invalid Kane County search warrant.

Rink, using the name of David Richard, was seen ordering two rubber stamps from an Elgin printing shop, one with the signature of Dr. Stanley Reedy of the Greenbriar County Health Department in Lewisberg, West Virginia and the other with the official seal of that office.

Elgin Police Detective Mark Brictson searched Rink’s Genoa home and found a birth certificate with the name of Timothy David Rink with the signature of Reedy and a social security card application.

Also found in Rink’s home were short-hand notes containing plans to print the birth certificate as well as another from Elkhart, Indiana.

State’s Attorney Philip DiMarzio said the judge claimed the warrant was invalid because he believed the facts did not amount to probable cause.

The judge said the information used to obtain the warrant was double hearsay, DiMarzio said. “The information was told to someone by someone else—piggybacking so-to-speak,” he said.

The third point was Brictson, who obtained the warrant, did not tell the issuing judge that Rink had said he purchased the items for a practical joke.

DiMarzio said Rink currently has charges pending with inadmissible evidence, and the case is still in review. “We’ll have a decision very soon. I’m waiting for additional information that I don’t have in my hands right now,” he said.

DiMarzio said his three choices are to appeal the court decision, dismiss the case or find evidence not recovered in the warrant.

“The warrant was not drawn in our office,” DiMarzio said. The investigation began in Kane County and “we didn’t even know they (Elgin Police) were coming out to execute a search warrant,” he said.