VT paper sues over denied FOIA request

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Virginia Tech's student newspaper is suing the West Virginia State Police to obtain documents related to the investigation of a graduate student's disappearance in September 1998.

The lawsuit filed by Educational Media Co., operator of The Collegiate Times, seeks to enforce a Freedom of Information Act request for records on missing architecture student Robert Kovack.

The 24-year-old Kovack told friends he was heading home to Rivesville, Marion County, to visit his parents and attend the West Virginia University football game against Maryland. His abandoned Geo Tracker was found along U.S. 19 four days later, about a half-mile north of the National Park Service's Canyon Rim Visitor Center.

At the time, police said the area around the vehicle indicated no crime or struggle.

Dog teams and National Park Service rangers and Kovack's family and friends from Blacksburg, Va., helped in the search, which included door-to-door visits to homes along the canyon and stops at campsites, where flyers were distributed.

State Police searched by helicopter and whitewater rafting companies helped examine the New River.

Last October, State Police denied The Collegiate Times' request for records, citing the ongoing investigation. The newspaper filed a FOIA request in January.

In denying the request, State Police said "the complete report" was covered by an exemption to the law, according to the May 19 lawsuit filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court.

The lawsuit names Col. T.S. Pack, the State Police superintendent.

Sgt. Mike Baylous, a State Police spokesman, and Charleston lawyer Mark Grigoraci, representing the newspaper, declined comment Friday.

The Collegiate Times published a May 7 story on Kovack's disappearance. Kelly Furnas, the newspaper's editorial adviser, didn't immediately return a telephone message.