Jacob Resneck, Wisconsin Watch

‘It shouldn’t be the wild west’: Wisconsin lacks clear system to track police caught lying

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

An Appleton police detective pleaded guilty to forging official signatures on search warrants used in a drug investigation. He was fined $500, far short of the maximum penalty of $10,000 and 3 ½ years in prison.

During sentencing April 30 in Outagamie County Circuit Court, the judge noted that former Appleton Police Sgt. Jeremy Haney’s dishonesty “may impugn any number of cases on which he has been involved.”

But whether prosecutors in Outagamie County track dishonesty among law enforcement officers isn’t clear. Unlike the majority of counties that disclosed who committed what are known as Brady violations, Outagamie was among 17 offices that either denied a Wisconsin Watch records request or said it didn’t keep track. Prosecutors must tell defense attorneys about such violations whenever those officers are called upon to testify in a criminal case.

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A Wisconsin Watch investigation seeking Brady files from all 72 counties found more than 360 examples in 31 counties of current and former Wisconsin law enforcement officers who prosecutors have flagged for dishonesty or breaking the law in ways that could undermine their credibility in court.

That’s a small fraction of the state’s 15,000 sworn law enforcement officers. But it’s also an incomplete number because of the inconsistency among district attorneys in tracking the information.

The lists include a Vernon County police chief who instructed a subordinate who fell asleep at the wheel and crashed his squad car to say he swerved to miss a dog. Prosecutors in two counties have said they won’t charge cases involving the still sitting Ontario police chief due to his history of dishonesty.

Also included was a Fond du Lac detective who was investigated by state agents and ultimately pushed out of the department following a pattern of sending demeaning text messages, racially profiling innocent people, mishandling evidence and attempting a cover-up. Criminal charges were never brought, but the DA declared the detective’s “credibility will be attacked in any testimony he is asked to provide and may present significant hurdles.”

Another 23 district attorneys said they had no names on file, though some said in response to Wisconsin Watch’s inquiry that they would reach out to local agencies to update their list.

Milwaukee County released a list of 150 former officers who had been prosecuted and in all but two cases convicted of crimes over the past 20 years. But it withheld its list of officers who had been investigated for dishonesty and other issues but never charged with a crime, citing case law that exempts prosecutorial files from public disclosure.

Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association (Submitted photo)

The lack of legal clarity has vexed defense lawyers and law enforcement officers — natural adversaries in the criminal justice system — who both say the current system can be confusing to navigate.

“It shouldn't be the wild west,” said Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, the largest police union in the state. “Some DAs may keep a list, some may not. … And whatever the procedure that a DA currently in office may utilize doesn't mean that any of their successors are going to do it the same way.”

Defense attorneys say efforts to obtain information about past lying by police officers are in some instances stymied by lax record keeping or resistance to sharing information, although not in all cases.

“We may have a unified court system, but we really are 72 different criminal legal systems,” said Adam Plotkin, legislative liaison in the State Public Defender’s Office. “How it's handled county by county can vary pretty dramatically.”

Prosecutors have a constitutional duty to turn over exculpatory evidence — including evidence of anything that calls into question an officer’s honesty — but there’s little oversight to ensure that always happens.

So far only one state, Colorado, has attempted to create a uniform system, though law enforcement lobbyists have been working behind the scenes to change Wisconsin law to make it easier for police to be removed from Brady lists.

Varying methods and levels of transparency

Named for the landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brady v. Maryland, the Brady doctrine began in what became a series of federal and state precedents requiring the government to disclose exculpatory evidence — material that could be favorable to the defense — even if it might weaken the prosecution’s case. Over the years, courts have expanded that principle to include any evidence that could impeach the credibility of the prosecution’s witnesses — including police officers — who were involved and helped build the case.

Adam Gerol with books on a shelf behind him Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol (Submitted photo)

A Wisconsin Watch analysis found the way district attorneys collect and manage Brady information — if that happens at all — is up to individual officeholders, and the methods and transparency vary. Only Iron County didn’t respond months after the initial request and despite multiple follow-up requests.

"I suspect you’re going to run into different practices depending on the size of the county,” wrote Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol.

Gerol provided his most recent example of disclosure — a 2020 letter to a criminal defendant outlining three instances of apparent dishonesty involving a former police sergeant involved in the case who had apparently lied about legal advice he received from the DA’s office.

There are no active officers in Ozaukee County subject to Brady disclosure, so there isn’t a current list, Gerol said. He relies on agencies to disclose if an officer giving testimony has ever been dishonest, but he has “never had a need to periodically request this information because I’m the one either discovering it or learning about it from the police in real time.”

In Green County, District Attorney Craig Nolen regularly sends out a three-page memo to law enforcement detailing the legal importance of full disclosure.

Green County DA Craig Nolen (Submitted photo)

“We understand that disclosure of findings of dishonesty may have significant consequences as to the effectiveness of officers and employees in their chosen careers,” Nolen wrote in a letter to law enforcement in 2023. “However, I am sure that such a finding in a disciplinary proceeding was not made lightly nor without due process. It is neither fair nor reasonable to expect prosecutors to risk their law licenses to hide another employee’s intentional negative conduct.”

Nevertheless, Nolen refused to publicly release the names of the officers he has on file, citing case law that often places a prosecutor’s files beyond the reach of open records requests.

In Waukesha County, District Attorney Sue Opper initially denied Wisconsin Watch’s records request for a Brady list saying “no records exist.” But upon follow-up she admitted the office does have Brady letters for several individual officers on file and produced 11 letters after deadline and shortly before publication of this story.

The lack of consistency and transparency on Brady information has long frustrated watchdog groups seeking to hold police agencies accountable for officer misconduct. Defense attorneys are also wary of prosecutors leaving it up to law enforcement agencies to self-report.

“Some prosecutors are more diligent about tracking it than others,” Plotkin said.

‘You can’t fart without somebody catching it’

The circumstances that could land an officer on a list vary, but all come down to an incident involving dishonesty.

For example, in 2019 Village of Ontario Police Chief David Rynes advised a part-time officer who had crashed his patrol car to make up a story about swerving to miss a dog after he fell asleep at the wheel in a neighboring county. Monroe County sheriff’s deputies recommended criminal charges against both the officer — who is no longer in law enforcement — and the police chief for their dishonesty, though neither ultimately was charged.

Rynes continues in his role even though he’s on Brady lists in multiple counties. Monroe and Vernon county prosecutors maintain they won’t bring cases to court that would rely on Rynes’ testimony.

Monroe County District Attorney Kevin Croninger told Wisconsin Watch his office doesn’t maintain a formal Brady list. His office enters names in a statewide database called Protect used by prosecutors across jurisdictions at their own discretion.

Prosecutors in other sparsely populated counties described a more informal approach to flagging dishonest officers but insisted they take oversight seriously in communities where people know each other.

“In Buffalo County you can't fart without somebody catching it,” District Attorney Tom Bilski said.

He said in years past he witnessed instances of flagrant dishonesty among law enforcement that prompted jurors to acquit defendants.

“There were sheriff's deputies that perjured themselves on the stand on a regular basis,” Bilski said. “None of those officers are still around.”

He said the roughly 20 officers in his county are part of a new generation of police who he believes are more ethical. He said he and his assistant read every police report that accompanies a criminal complaint looking for inconsistencies or evidence of dishonesty.

“If I have any inclination that an officer's gonna perjure themselves on the stand, I will immediately put them on a list, and they'll know that and I'll dismiss the case,” he said.

“It's a big issue for me,” he added. “I just don't have anybody to put on the list.”

So-called “wandering officers” — police who are fired or forced to resign over misconduct and then land jobs with other agencies — may be on one county’s list but not another depending on the level of record keeping.

Only decertified officers are prevented from being rehired. Recently the investigative nonprofit The Badger Project uncovered evidence of more than 300 examples of wandering officers in Wisconsin, a trend it found has increased over the past three years.

Walworth County District Attorney Zeke Wiedenfeld told Wisconsin Watch his office relies on a traditional paper file with letters for about 20 current and former officers who have documented instances of dishonesty.

“We don't compile a list,” he said in an interview.

His approach is to release any names he receives from law enforcement to defense attorneys and then leave it up to them to request records from the police department.

One officer in his file is Patrol Officer Casey Apker, who was suspended multiple times and ultimately fired from the Kenosha Police Department in 2014 over allegations he harassed a female colleague, aggressively confronted a citizen over an off-duty parking dispute and responded to calls outside of his assignment area.

Apker, who has worked as a police officer since 2021 in the village of Sharon in Walworth County, is among 15 former and current officers included on a Brady list provided by the Kenosha County DA.

Collage with an image of a Kenosha News front page with the headline Casey Apker was fired from the Kenosha Police Department in 2014 but later hired in Walworth County. The district attorneys in Kenosha and Walworth counties keep track of his name to comply with what are known as Brady disclosure requirements, but had different responses to requests for those records.

“He was fired in front of the public,” Kenosha Police Department spokesperson Lt. Joshua Hecker said. “If any police department ever did a background check, they should be able to find that fairly easily.”

He was nevertheless hired in Walworth County in 2016 but resigned in lieu of termination from the Town of Geneva department less than a year later for dishonesty. He worked for nearly two years for the Town of Burlington Police Department in Racine County and then was hired by the Village of Sharon Police Department, where he has worked full-time since 2021.

“He’s been a good officer for us — great work,” Sharon Police Chief Brad Buchholz told Wisconsin Watch.

Wiedenfeld knew Apker’s name from the 20 or so current and past officers he keeps in his paper file.

“I agree everybody does it a little bit different,” Wiedenfeld said.

Longtime Kenosha County District Attorney Mike Graveley said the old practice was not to keep a list but rather a voluminous paper file for any documented dishonesty self-reported by police officers who were asked to complete a questionnaire.

“We did no analysis,” Graveley said. “We just simply collated that information and collected it. And then if somebody sent us an open records request, we sent out all of the names.”

But several months ago his office began scrutinizing each name and making its own call on whether missteps should rise to the level of disclosure to defense counsel.

“Any individual that we felt did not meet the standard of something we would need to disclose to defense counsel as exculpatory evidence,” Graveley said, “that person is no longer included in any list.”

Other district attorneys either didn’t track dishonest officers or were unwilling to share names with the public.

Outagamie, Waupaca, Door, Manitowoc, Pierce, Polk and Rusk counties all rejected the records request with responses that used the exact same wording.

Polk County District Attorney Jeffrey Kemp said he worried about unspecified harm from releasing his office’s Brady list to the media.

“My concern is that such information will potentially be abused by entities that may have an agenda that is, perhaps, not foreseen by your organization,” he wrote in response to Wisconsin Watch’s records request.

Rusk County District Attorney Ellen Anderson, who was appointed by Gov. Tony Evers in 2022, reversed her initial denial after being contacted by Wisconsin Watch and affirmed her office has no current Brady listed officers or policies or procedures in place.

Some jurisdictions more diligent than others

The Dane County district attorney in Madison released a list with 25 names on it from 10 law enforcement agencies with the caveat that not all officers may still be employed by that department.

The state Department of Justice has resisted sharing its list of currently active law enforcement officers, making it difficult to cross-reference names.

Likewise, Winnebago County District Attorney Eric Sparr released a list with the names of 29 officers from the Wisconsin State Patrol, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and Appleton Police Department in neighboring Outagamie County. Some names were listed more than 20 years ago, and it’s unclear how many still work in law enforcement.

The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office — which oversees more than a fifth of all sworn officers in the state — released a list with 150 names going back 20 years listing criminal charges against the officers.

However, the county declined to release “records relating to individuals on the list who were referred for prosecution but not charged,” wrote Milwaukee County Deputy District Attorney Karen Loebel.

In many cases officers on Brady lists due to dishonesty were never accused of a crime. The standard set by the nation’s highest court sets a record of untruthfulness that can include giving conflicting testimony under oath or lying in the course of an administrative investigation.

That’s how former Sheboygan Police Officer Bryan Pray ended up on a Brady list in 2023. After being caught distributing nude photos of a female colleague, he “gave false information or was not completely forthcoming to investigators in interviews where he was required to tell the truth,” investigators wrote.

Charges were never filed, and he resigned only after Wisconsin Watch and the Sheboygan Press reported details of his misconduct.

In Brown County, prosecutors in Green Bay released a list with 16 names but with no context on why they were included or whether they were still employed.

“For more specific information about each, I would refer you to the respective agency where the officer is or was employed,” Brown County District Attorney David Lasee wrote.

The list included no dates or corresponding agencies.

Colorado law creates statewide standard

Legal experts say Wisconsin’s example of uneven transparency standards is common nationwide.

“It's completely and sadly normal,” said Rachel Moran, an associate law professor at University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, who has criticized systemic failures to enforce Brady rules.

Only Colorado has a law requiring the maintenance of Brady lists and explaining what those lists should look like, she noted.

The law established a six-member oversight committee that includes a majority appointed by police groups and prosecutors who are empowered to decertify officers for “untruthfulness.” It also mandated that officers flagged for dishonesty be tracked in the public-facing database.

Colorado’s system also enshrines a notification requirement for officers before they’re placed on a list and lays out a process for them to petition removal.

A mechanism that would allow officers to challenge and be removed from a Brady list has been a priority for Wisconsin law enforcement groups, which records show have been quietly lobbying on the issue since last July.

“It's just a conversation that we've been having with the state Legislature,” Badger State Sheriffs’ Association President and Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt said, adding it’s something they’ll be discussing again next session.

“I have come across incidents where individuals have been wrongly accused of things,” he said. “They never had the opportunity to have that due process to at least share both sides of the story.”

Dale Schmidt talks at a podium with news media microphones. Badger State Sheriffs’ Association President Dale Schmidt answers questions at a press conference in July 2016 in Dodge County, Wis. (Mike Sears / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Hecker, the Kenosha Police spokesperson, recounted how he had lied to his captain in 2006 about pursuing a suspect as a cover story for allowing a trainee to get a squad car stuck in the mud.

He was written up for dishonesty and placed in the DA’s Brady file, which prompted extra scrutiny from prosecutors whenever he would be called to testify.

“This was an isolated incident that happened out of fear, and it was stupid, and I readily and immediately admitted my wrongdoing,” Hecker told Wisconsin Watch. “And then for the next 20 years in my career it labeled me — which isn't fair.”

The incident didn’t hinder either of the officers’ careers.

“The guy that I was training is our chief of police and I'm in internal affairs,” Hecker added.

Defense attorneys are skeptical of how an officer flagged for dishonesty could later be delisted without running afoul of the constitutional principle that a person’s past dishonesty should be disclosed.

“The mere passage of time doesn't change the fact that it's still exculpatory,” said Dean Strang, a veteran Madison defense attorney who also teaches at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

If it was indeed a minor thing or there’s evidence it was blown out of proportion, the prosecutor always has the ability to argue that it’s admissible, and if the judge agrees the defense can raise it in court.

“Whether it comes in at trial is an entirely different question,” he added.

Wisconsin Watch inquiry sparks conversations

District attorney vacancies are filled by governor’s appointees who report being tasked with running prosecutions with little formal guidance. Evers’ office referred questions to DOJ.

DOJ officials didn’t respond to a request for comment. The agency said it doesn’t have a statewide Brady list.

The Wisconsin Office of Open Government released materials prepared by local district attorneys that cover Brady doctrine that were apparently used to train prosecutors in other counties. The only policy document was a decade-old memo reminding prosecutors in the state attorney general’s office of their responsibilities.

“Prosecutors have a duty to make reasonable efforts to obtain exculpatory information from law enforcement agencies,” the four-page memo from 2013 states.

But Wisconsin Watch could not find any evidence of uniform guidance to local prosecutors. In one 2014 document the agency acknowledged offices in different-sized counties will handle it differently.

Several district attorneys told Wisconsin Watch they were unaware of the existence of state guidance. Some reported they only reached out to law enforcement agencies for a list of dishonest officers after Wisconsin Watch asked for their list.

‘There’s integrity in enforcing some integrity’

Palmer, the police union head, said the Colorado model is better than Wisconsin’s nonexistent standard. Law enforcement wouldn’t necessarily object to having the lists be made public, he added.

“The public does absolutely have the right to know what officers are on Brady lists, but they also ought to have some confidence that those determinations are made appropriately,” he said.

Adam Plotkin, legislative liaison to the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office (Submitted photo)

The Public Defender’s Office would like to see a consistent standard but Plotkin, its legislative liaison, said it would need to see the proposal.

“Uniformity is helpful if it lands on the side of providing the information, making it available,” Plotkin said. “Uniformity would not be helpful if it essentially provides a shield from accessing that information.”

He also criticized Colorado’s model for having a six-person oversight committee composed of police and prosecutor appointees who ultimately decide whether a police officer’s past misconduct would be made public.

“The council that governs how this all works is headed by the people that it's intended to track,” he added. “So you want to make sure that there's integrity in enforcing some integrity.”

The lack of statewide standards or oversight from DOJ leaves prosecutors to make judgment calls that have life-changing ramifications based on one person’s word against another.

“Law enforcement officers get an enhanced presumption of credibility — it's just the way of the world,” Plotkin said. “And so when you have that heightened presumption of credibility, there should be heightened scrutiny.”

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication with a response from Waukesha County. It also updates a quote from Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol that was missing a contextual part of his statement.

Wisconsin judge under investigation for jailing man over dispute with courthouse employee

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished under a Creative Commons license.

Hortonville, Wis., contractor Tyler Barth was more than halfway through his 18 months on felony probation for attempting to elude an officer when the judge ordered him into court.

Recently he had been caught driving to work on a suspended license. And THC was found in his system during a drug test; he told his probation officer he used marijuana to treat his back pain.

“But it’s not an excuse,” he told the judge who presided over his conviction for attempting to elude an officer during a 70 mph vehicle chase.

But the weed and traffic ticket weren’t the only thing Outagamie Circuit Court Judge Mark McGinnis wanted to talk about. He told Barth there were “several thousands of dollars that you took from somebody,” according to the Dec. 20, 2021, court hearing transcript.

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Barth protested that he hadn’t stolen any money. The judge looked at the clock.

“It’s, like, 11:02, so that's going to be paid back by 11:15 today,” McGinnis said. “Or do you need more than 13 minutes?”

Barth asked for a week, then 24 hours to collect the money. McGinnis denied the request and told him he would spend up to 90 days in jail.

“As soon as that’s paid you’ll be released a minute later when I find out,” McGinnis said before he adjourned. Barth was led away by sheriff’s deputies expecting to spend Christmas and New Year’s behind bars.

What few people in the courtroom knew at the time was that Barth had received an ominous warning from a business client who was upset he was holding a $7,000 deposit for a concrete pouring job in Oneida County that had been delayed due to the cold weather.

“You do know that my wife works for a judge,” the client texted Barth.

The implication was that McGinnis had used Barth’s criminal case to resolve a civil dispute involving someone the judge knew personally. The Department of Justice opened an investigation into McGinnis’ actions, Wisconsin Watch has learned, but the case has languished for more than a year with no indication whether charges will be filed.

Tyler Barth, a Hortonville cement contractor, says Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis jailed him over a financial dispute with a disgruntled client who worked in the courthouse. He is seen on Sept. 8, 2023, at a job site in Appleton, Wis. (Jacob Resneck / Wisconsin Watch)

The case shows how Wisconsin judges enjoy limited oversight for their courtroom conduct due to broad legal immunity. It has been decades since the state Supreme Court removed a judge from the bench after the Wisconsin Judicial Commission brought a complaint. Since then 21 judges have faced only public reprimands and temporary suspensions for misconduct in office.

Legal experts agree judges have unparalleled latitude for taking away someone’s liberty, especially if they are on probation. But invoking criminal penalties to compel action in an unrelated dispute arguably goes beyond a judge’s lawful authority.

John P. Gross, director of the Public Defender Project at University of Wisconsin Law School, reviewed the transcripts in Barth’s case and said it’s unclear what the legal basis was for the judge jailing the defendant.

Public records show Barth faced no formal complaints at the time of the hearing, raising questions as to how the judge knew about the cement dispute.

“But even if there was a civil action,” Gross told Wisconsin Watch, “there’s no real justification to use that as a cudgel.”

Barth’s ordeal is only the latest in a series of documented missteps and alleged overreach by McGinnis. Yet to date, the judge has faced no public consequences for his actions.

A reputation as a tough judge with polarizing style

Defense attorneys in Outagamie County offered mixed opinions on McGinnis’ reputation, with one seeing him as a tough-but-fair jurist and others saying he prejudges defendants he doesn’t like.

In Wisconsin, circuit court judges run for six-year terms in nonpartisan spring elections. But no one has challenged McGinnis since his first election in 2005 at age 34. His style as a jurist has come under scrutiny for years. He didn’t respond to Wisconsin Watch’s interview requests.

In 2007, McGinnis began sentencing dozens of nonviolent offenders to work for a nonprofit that salvages and sells fixtures from demolished buildings. The sentences weren’t unusual, but what attracted attention was McGinnis supervised the offenders from the bench, cutting probation officers out of the process.

“I use only nonviolent offenders and they are not necessarily bad people,” McGinnis told the Post-Crescent at the time.

McGinnis’ micromanaging is similar to fellow Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Biskupic, whose legally questionable method of tightly controlling defendants’ lives was detailed in Wisconsin Watch’s 2021 series Justice Deferred.

McGinnis’ relationship with the probation department itself has faced scrutiny. After fending off a messy lawsuit from former business partners, he came into ownership of an office building in Grand Chute. He arranged a multimillion-dollar deal with the state Department of Corrections to house its probation department in 2008.

The Post-Crescent obtained internal emails showing agency attorneys called the $2.7 million 15-year lease “problematic” as the judicial code of conduct prohibits judges from having a business relationship with entities that come before the court. McGinnis said the Wisconsin Judicial Commission provided ethical guidance essentially green-lighting the deal.

The commission denied a records request for its ethical guidance, citing confidentiality of its proceedings. The 15-year lease was renewed last May and could be worth as much as $4.4 million through 2042.

A complaint alleged McGinnis skirted state ethics law in years past by not disclosing income he received for legal training sessions for Appleton police officers.

Records previously published by Wisconsin Watch show that between 2007 and 2011 he billed the city of Appleton $18,450 for scores of half-day legal trainings at $450 a session.

The revelation came only after an incarcerated man serving a 45-year sentence for child sex offenses filed a lawsuit claiming it was a conflict of interest for a judge to train police officers and then make rulings based on their performance. A federal judge dismissed the suit as frivolous.

In 2009, McGinnis was instrumental in creating a Truancy Court for the Appleton Area School District to deal with chronic absenteeism in secondary schools. Some lauded the criminal justice-style approach to getting wayward teenagers back on track.

But some parents and community members began complaining about what they characterized as his bullying and belittling the minors who would appear in his courtroom — and even exit in handcuffs over attendance issues.

A 2018 outside review commissioned by the school district recommended McGinnis be removed from the program. The review substantiated complaints that he punished students through days-long placements in ShelterCare — a secure housing facility for youth considered to be at-risk.

McGinnis also ordered electronic monitoring despite the Court of Appeals ruling he lacked authority to do so.

“The judge has bullied students who do not communicate easily and their parents,” Madison attorney Duane McCrary wrote in his report after interviewing school administrators, families and judges involved in the Truancy Court. “When parents or attorneys try to explain, he shuts them down.”

The Appleton City Council repealed its truancy ordinance in 2019 and the Truancy Court was subsequently dissolved, ending the decade-long experiment.

Court of Appeals overturns sentences

McGinnis’ actions in criminal cases have also drawn public scrutiny.

A 2015 Post-Crescent investigation found that over a four-year period he led the state in substitutions — 1,130 requests by defense attorneys that he be replaced by another judge in felony cases, which the newspaper said was triple the volume of any other circuit court judge in Wisconsin.

A Wisconsin Watch review of court data over the past five years found McGinnis continues to lead Outagamie County in substitutions, drawing nearly a fifth of all requests out of the seven judicial branches.

McGinnis’ rulings have also been overturned by higher courts for exceeding his sentencing authority. In 2009, an appellate court admonished McGinnis for being “objectively biased” after he threatened a defendant with maximum sentencing if the man violated his probation. The court ruled the defendant was entitled to a new judge and resentencing.

Judge Mark McGinnis was elected at the age of 34 in 2005 but hasn’t faced an electoral opponent since. He is seen on Dec. 13, 2022, in Outagamie County Circuit Court in Appleton, Wis. (William Glasheen / USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

In 2018, the appellate court reversed a six-month contempt sentence that McGinnis imposed when a defendant rolled his eyes and glared at him in a case that attracted scrutiny from legal watchdogs.

“It's not showing up on a transcript but that's the type of disrespect that shouldn't exist in a courtroom,” McGinnis told the defendant. “You can purposely look away, and you can look at me and give me the fuck-you look, right, that you have been giving me for the last minute and that's fine. That's just who you are.”

McGinnis said the man could be released only by submitting a written apology and paying a $5,000 fine to the court.

State prosecutors — rather than defend McGinnis’ jail sentence — filed a letter confirming that the six months in lock-up went beyond the 30-day statutory maximum. In all, the man spent 42 days in jail.

The $5,000 fine imposed by McGinnis was also reversed as it exceeded the legal maximum by tenfold.

Judges given broad immunity by highest court

The U.S. Supreme Court has given judges almost blanket immunity for their official actions on the bench. Higher courts can overturn a decision when a judge fails to follow the rules, but judges rarely face sanctions for exceeding their authority.

In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court can remove a judge based on a complaint-driven recommendation from the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, a mixed panel of appointed lawyers, judges and non-lawyers. Other methods include a public recall and removal by the Legislature via impeachment or address.

Wisconsin judges have been accused of serious crimes — federal felony prostitution charges and even murder in a political rivalry — but when it comes to their actions on the bench only one has been successfully removed.

Former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle was a private attorney in the 1980s when the Wisconsin Judicial Commission asked him to argue the case against Rusk County Circuit Judge Donald J. Sterlinske, accused of a string of improprieties from falsifying court records to settling personal scores from the bench.

“It was pretty egregious,” said Doyle, who went on to serve 12 years as attorney general and two terms as governor. “There was a whole series of other really intemperate and questionable behavior on his part.”

In 1985, the state Supreme Court agreed to remove Sterlinske for, among other things, using a high bail amount as a retaliatory measure for a defendant who had asked for a different judge.

“He had a little fiefdom in that county, and he was used to getting whatever he wanted by saying he was the judge,” Doyle told Wisconsin Watch.

But records show the commission has since relied on public reprimands and suspensions from a few days to a couple of years for cases ranging from sexual harassment to brandishing firearms in the courtroom.

Most recently, Winnebago County Circuit Court Judge Scott C. Woldt received a seven-day suspension in 2021 for at least twice showing off a pistol and “making crude, sarcastic, and undignified comments” toward defendants as well as “intemperate remarks concerning victims in criminal cases.”

A subsequent complaint was filed after he threatened a defense attorney who had displayed a lawn sign supporting the judge’s opponent in the 2022 election. The commission has not indicated whether it would again sanction him.

Enforcing misconduct laws typically falls to local prosecutors, who may be conflicted in doing so.

“The judge can make … the life of the district attorney's office hell,” said Mike Balskus, a defense attorney and former prosecutor who practices criminal law across northeast Wisconsin. “(Judicial misconduct) should not be tried in the county where the judge is practicing or making his rulings.”

McGinnis walks back cement contractor’s jail sentence

Barth, the cement contractor jailed by McGinnis over the unspecified debt, didn’t stay locked up for long. Fond du Lac County attorney Kirk Everson received a tip about the matter, ordered the transcript and put himself on retainer the next day.

“It was very difficult to believe,” Everson said later, “because obviously, if you're gonna take away somebody's liberty, it’s got to be done legally. And what was described to me, it just sounded a little bit unusual.”

Everson appeared by phone with Barth within 48 hours of the first hearing. McGinnis’ tone had changed, and he quickly walked back the sentence.

“I was reluctant to get into a lot of details in front of a packed courtroom because we had a whole bunch of people,” McGinnis said, according to the Dec. 22, 2021, transcript.

McGinnis said “information” about Barth came to his attention while he was reviewing arrest warrants. He said he became concerned about the positive drug test for marijuana, driving on a suspended license “and this financial issue, or issues, because I think there was a lot more going on than that. But again, I'm a little bit restricted on what I can say.”

It’s unclear how the judge would have learned about the financial dispute in an arrest warrant because the property owners wouldn’t file criminal complaints until two weeks later, according to police records.

John Gross is director of the University of Wisconsin Law School’s Public Defender Project. He reviewed court transcripts in Tyler Barth’s criminal case and said there’s an appearance that the judge exceeded his legal authority by jailing him over an unrelated civil dispute. (Courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Legal experts agree judges can’t jail someone unless the person is found in contempt or on the recommendation of the probation officer for specific violations.

“You are entitled to a hearing on whether or not you did, in fact, violate the terms and conditions of your probation,” said Gross, the criminal law professor who reviewed the transcripts. “But that didn't happen here.”

Once Everson, the defense attorney, started asking McGinnis about the legal basis for his client’s incarceration, the judge walked back the 90-day sentence.

“When I asked him, ‘Why are we here? Why is Mr. Barth incarcerated?’ — I don't believe I was ever answered,” Everson said later. “But he was released that day.”

The court record doesn’t provide much clarity to legal observers.

“I don't want to be unnecessarily overly critical of a judge,” Gross said. “It's like a word salad in there about why he did what he did.”

The couple who hired Barth may have had a good case for wanting their money back, but Gross said the judge’s apparent merging of a civil dispute with a criminal procedure was problematic. Congress abolished debtors’ prisons in the 1830s.

“There's a legitimate way to deal with this,” Gross said. “If he was liable in the civil matter for a breach of contract — that's not a reason to revoke his probation in criminal court. He didn’t commit a new crime.”

What’s also potentially problematic for McGinnis is if he had used his authority over a criminal matter to settle a dispute on behalf of someone he knows.

“You do know that my wife works for a judge,” property owner Wayne Dorsey wrote in a Nov. 26, 2021, text to Barth demanding a refund. “We are personal friends with half the lawyers in the valley. Do the right thing and keep your good name for your new business and I promise you you will get the $6500 back in the spring because I want this done ASAP.”

A Text message from Wayne Dorsey to Tyler Barth on Nov. 16, 2021, in which he warns the Hortonville cement contractor that his wife — a courthouse employee — had ties to the legal community and there could be consequences if they didn’t come to terms.

Barth was subsequently jailed by Judge Mark McGinnis over the dispute, a move that surprised and disturbed legal experts. Wisconsin Watch has redacted the phone number for privacy.

Barth told Wisconsin Watch he didn’t take it very seriously, but he realized he might be in trouble when he saw Paula Dorsey — who works for a different Outagamie County circuit judge down the hall — in the courtroom as McGinnis threatened him with jail.

Everson filed a motion asking McGinnis to recuse himself from Barth’s criminal case because of his connection to Paula Dorsey.

Everson quoted from the judicial code of conduct in his Jan. 6, 2022, motion: “A judge may not lend the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or of others.”

Wisconsin Watch requested courthouse emails between McGinnis and Dorsey involving the Barth case. In Wisconsin, judges are the custodians of their own records.

McGinnis produced only his own emails with the head of the Wisconsin Judicial Commission seeking guidance on the recusal motion. The correspondence indicates McGinnis laid out the situation over a voicemail he left with the commission’s director.

Judicial Commission executive director Jeremiah Van Hecke wrote back March 3, 2022, reassuring McGinnis could hold onto the case unless he has a “close relationship” with the courthouse employee, is a witness to the dispute or is the employee’s direct supervisor.

“I do not see a clear basis for recusal,” Van Hecke replied.

McGinnis denied the motion and Barth continued to appear before him for regular probation review hearings over the next seven months.

Van Hecke declined to comment.

Barth pays back every penny

Barth said while in jail he was confused about the prospect of spending the holidays behind bars. He said his outlook changed following an unexpected jail visit from Everson, the defense attorney.

“It was this big dude with a white beard,” Barth would recall later. “It was a Christmas miracle.”

But Barth’s legal worries weren’t over. The Dorseys filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Barth settled it by — among other things — agreeing to clearly state on contracts when jobs would be started and completed. The Dorseys also reported Barth for fraud with the Grand Chute Police Department after police in Hortonville declined to intervene.

“I explained to Paula this is a civil matter,” Hortonville Police Chief Kristine Brownson wrote in her summary. “Paula asked if I was going to make contact with Tyler concerning the money. I told Paula I would not be.”

Grand Chute assigned a detective who attended Barth’s April 7, 2022, probation hearing to oversee the couple receiving the remainder of the $7,000 deposit. The case, investigated as suspected fraud, was then closed as a civil matter.

A Dec. 20, 2021, Court transcript shows Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis questioning Tyler Barth about a cement contract dispute with a courthouse employee during a criminal probation hearing. It’s unclear from public records how McGinnis knew about the unrelated financial dispute.

Barth’s probation officer Shannon Hein reported to McGinnis on Aug. 10, 2022, that the financial dispute had been settled.

“Ms. Dorsey confirmed that Mr. Barth returned her deposit in full so the situation has been resolved,” Hein wrote, adding that no other consumer complaints were outstanding against the contractor.

“Sounds like a good report,” remarked McGinnis in a handwritten note in the margins, adding instructions to call and see if additional probation review hearings would be needed.

Reflecting later, Barth said there was so much pressure he eventually paid back every dime, leaving him out the time and money he put into the job.

“I washed my hands of the whole thing,” Barth said. “I just want to run a business.”

For his part, Wayne Dorsey denied the suggestion that his wife pulled strings at the courthouse to help get their money repaid.

“My wife doesn't even work for Judge McGinnis,” Dorsey told Wisconsin Watch by phone. “I'm not even sure how we got the money back. But we did.”

He said he wasn’t sure if his wife was in the courtroom the day Barth was jailed over the financial dispute. Paula Dorsey referred all questions to her attorney, who did not respond.

State criminal investigators open probe

DCI investigators have interviewed Barth and his attorney over the probation case, but their last contact was more than a year ago and they haven’t heard anything since.

Barth’s defense attorney — who Barth said took the case for free — asked investigators to read the transcripts for evidence of misconduct.

“When I talked to the district attorney, it was obvious that they were going to have a conflict, and so was all (local) law enforcement,” Everson said. “So that's when the referral would go to DCI.”

A court Transcript from Dec. 20, 2021, shows the moment when Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis jailed Tyler Barth over a $7,000 contract dispute in an unrelated criminal probation hearing.

Outagamie County District Attorney Melinda Tempelis confirmed her office had recused itself. She referred questions to the state Department of Justice.

State investigators refused to comment on the McGinnis investigation or the limits of its jurisdiction in pursuing public integrity cases.

Assistant Attorney General Paul M. Ferguson of the Office of Open Government denied a records request for its McGinnis file, explaining the files “pertain to an investigation that is continuing at this time,” but wrote that they could be available in the future.

Meanwhile, Barth hasn’t completely put his experience in McGinnis’ courtroom behind him.

“If there's anything that I would like to see,” Barth said, “is he can't do that to no one else.”

Barth has retained Madison civil rights attorney Jeff Scott Olson to pursue a potential civil action. But Olson concedes it’s very difficult to hold judges accountable.

“For something he does with his robe on, it is almost completely impossible,” Olson said.

Editor's note: This story corrects the location of the office building McGinnis owns. An earlier version incorrectly said it was near the courthouse. It's located in Grand Chute.

The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

A police recruit alleged she was sexually assaulted. Days later she lost her job.

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

A 21-year-old police recruit stood in the early morning winter darkness, unsure of what had just happened inside the Comfort Suites in Grand Chute, Wisconsin.

After a night of heavy drinking she awoke partially clothed in a hotel bathtub. Two male academy recruits — from Appleton and Sheboygan — were dousing her feet with cold water and slapping her awake. She dressed and fled the hotel room, but still felt too drunk to drive, so she phoned a trusted co-worker at the Grand Chute Police Department.

After the officer brought her to the police station, she described her ordeal and raised the possibility that she had been sexually assaulted. A DNA swab and blood test were taken at the hospital. She later told Wisconsin Watch she felt confused and still intoxicated during the initial interview.

“Some of the things that I told them — when I was reading the report — I didn’t even remember telling them,” she said.

The two men involved initially gave conflicting accounts of what happened. DNA results that came back almost two months later confirmed one of the men in the hotel room had sex with her. Yet within 34 hours of the reported assault, the Grand Chute Police Department decided not to refer criminal charges to the district attorney and within a week forced her to resign over an unrelated disciplinary complaint.

Wisconsin Watch obtained internal reports, reviewed the evidence and spoke to criminal justice experts. It found in a case like this, in which a police department employee is an alleged crime victim, Wisconsin has no clear standard for when an outside agency must be involved to avoid a potential conflict of interest either in the law or through professional guidelines.

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Wisconsin has adopted a constitutional amendment, known as Marsy’s Law, guaranteeing a crime victim’s right to fairness in the justice system. Grand Chute police cited the law in refusing to release the report or details of the incident to Wisconsin Watch, the latest example of a Wisconsin police department using Marsy’s Law to shield individual police officers from scrutiny.

The Wisconsin Watch investigation also found efforts by top Sheboygan police officials to shepherd one of the men involved through the civilian oversight process without disclosing potential red flags from his past. Wisconsin Watch previously reported on a culture of sexual harassment within the Sheboygan Police Department that had not been disclosed to the public.

Wisconsin Watch learned about the Grand Chute sexual assault allegations as part of its initial investigation into the Sheboygan police department and then identified, located and made initial contact with the woman involved. Wisconsin Watch is not naming the parties because it does not typically name alleged sexual assault victims and because the two men involved have not been charged with a crime.

The woman involved said she felt the department used the separate disciplinary review as a pretext to force her out after she reported the assault. Official records show only that she abruptly resigned from the police department before graduating from the law enforcement academy.

“I feel so betrayed by law enforcement as a whole,” she said.

She said because her allegations involved officers from two partner agencies and she was subject to an internal review, her employer should have called in an outside agency like it does for a police shooting.

“I don't think Grand Chute should have investigated it,” she said. “I think they should have called in other people.”

A parallel administrative investigation by Fox Valley Technical College, where the three were enrolled, found the woman’s account — that she was too intoxicated to consent to sex — was credible. The investigation led to both men being suspended from the law enforcement academy.

Shortly after the incident they were both out of a job within their respective departments.

The two men did not respond to calls, voicemails, text messages and emails for comment.

‘There’s no reason I can’t do this’

The female recruit grew up in a small suburban Appleton community. She didn’t have any family in law enforcement and never imagined she would work as a police officer.

“As a child, I always kind of admired the profession,” she said.

She wanted to help people in need and began training to be an EMT. But she found it unfulfilling and was drawn to working closer to her own community. She enrolled in criminal justice courses and said the subject fascinated her.

“There’s no reason I can’t do this,” she recalled thinking, “just because I don’t have a family legacy.”

A Portrait of a former police recruit taken near her home outside of Wisconsin on Sept. 17, 2023. The woman says she doesn’t think the Grand Chute Police Department should have investigated her sexual assault allegations against two law enforcement academy classmates. (Jenn Ackerman for Wisconsin Watch)

Shortly after her 20th birthday, Grand Chute’s police department hired her as a community service officer — a part-time civilian employee who investigates minor complaints such as off-leash dogs and parking violations.

The entry level program is often a precursor to the 18-week police academy.A year and a half into her employment, she learned someone filed a complaint alleging she disparaged the department in front of academy students and used a slur to refer to a co-worker with whom she had clashed, which she disputes.

The complaint also alleged she occasionally talked with a co-worker while leaving a phone call on hold and neglected to conduct neighborhood patrol checks, which she acknowledged.

The review was opened in early January 2022. She said at first she was assured it would take a week or two, but it dragged on without resolution. She said she threatened to quit in February but was told she would get no reference from the department if she did.

“The inquiry was going on for so long,” she said. “I was like, I just want this to be done with.”

A night out after success on the shooting range

Fox Valley Technical College’s law enforcement academy recruits were out on March 2, 2022 — a Wednesday evening — to celebrate passing their firearms qualification. The woman met a friend at a steakhouse for dinner and a cocktail after class, and she later spotted the two academy classmates.

The trio next went to the lobby bar of the Comfort Suites where one of the men was staying, before heading to The Peppermint Hippo strip club in Neenah for more drinks.

“On the car ride back to the hotel I couldn’t even hold my own head up,” she recalled.

By the time they returned to the Comfort Suites, she told investigators, she had between six and nine mixed drinks and as many as three shots over the course of the evening.

“One of the things that registered as a red flag to me — after the fact — was that the only drink I paid for myself that night was the margarita I had before I even met up with them,” she said. “Every other drink was being brought to me by them. And I just kept drinking, for free.”

She was too drunk to drive back to her mother’s house nearby so one of the men rented a second room. What happened next inside the room is in dispute.

The woman said she lay down on the couch. She vaguely remembers being carried to the bed and her jeans being pulled down but didn’t resist because her pants were tight and uncomfortable.

“I felt like I was way too drunk. I just wanted to go to bed,” she said. “Because I think at that point … I was like, ‘I've been drunk for too long. I just want to be sober again.’ ”

A Portrait of a former police recruit taken near her home outside of Wisconsin on Sept. 17, 2023. Her former agency recommended no charges after concluding a sexual assault investigation within 34 hours, which one criminal justice expert calls “troubling.” (Jenn Ackerman for Wisconsin Watch)

In the report one of the men said he picked her up and tossed her onto the bed as she was laughing. She told investigators she may have been carried to the bed, but her recollection was hazy.

She later recalled both men performing sexual acts on her while she slipped in and out of consciousness, unable to physically resist.

“I couldn’t get myself to come to,” she said, “to wake myself up and stop anything.”

Speaking to Grand Chute police investigators, one of the men at first denied any sexual contact, claiming that she had attempted to have sex with him and that he could be considered a victim of sexual assault. After police revealed the other man confirmed the three had sex, he changed his story.

All three told investigators that they fell asleep but woke up minutes later when the woman’s alarm went off around 2 a.m.

“They carried me into the shower and set me on the side of the tub and turned the cold water on me to try and wake me up,” she recalled. “Because I think at that point, they just kind of wanted to get rid of me.”

Investigators met a second time with her that afternoon. They suggested she answer a Snapchat social media message she received from one of the men earlier that morning. The detective coached her on how to answer, she said.

The detective’s coaching is not reflected in the report that includes a transcript of the written exchange. She responded at one point that she was “embarrassed” — a word choice she said was suggested by the detective and which she later thought hurt her credibility.

“Embarrassed isn’t the right word to describe how I feel about this,” she told Wisconsin Watch. “If I had regrets, this would not be the course of action I would take.”

Open and shut in less than 34 hours

Investigators concluded the woman wasn’t completely incapacitated by alcohol because she wasn’t visibly swaying when she checked into the hotel and she used her phone to call an officer she knew.

Grand Chute Police Chief Greg Peterson said investigators ultimately received conflicting stories about what happened inside the room.

“There was her statement and there are the statements from (the two male recruits) — their opinion that she wasn't completely blacked out,” he said.

Experts say sexual assaults can be difficult to prosecute for a number of reasons but particularly when the parties know each other, there is no sign of physical coercion and alcohol is involved.

A lot of times it comes down to whose account investigators choose to believe, said Cassia Spohn, an Arizona State University criminal justice professor and nationally recognized expert in sexual assault investigations. “It’s a really difficult case to determine with any degree of precision what actually happened."

But Spohn — who advises the military and metropolitan police agencies on handling sexual assault cases — also called the quick resolution of the case “troubling.”

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“In my experience of reviewing these kinds of cases, the police would not close the case so quickly,” she said. “They would spend a little more time giving the victim at least the satisfaction of knowing that they did do a thorough investigation.”

Spohn based her opinion on the incident report prepared by Grand Chute police investigators, whom she credited with apparently thorough work — gathering evidence immediately at the hotel and interviewing all three involved.

Spohn said the fact that all three confirmed that the woman was out cold with her socks on in the bathtub and they were slapping her to try to wake her up supported her claim that she was too intoxicated to consent.

Spohn also said it was odd that a detective would suggest the victim say she felt “embarrassed” after being sexually assaulted if they wanted to get information out of a potential crime suspect.

“You think that they would have coached her to say ‘I feel really violated’ rather than ‘embarrassed’ and his response might have been different,” Spohn said.

A Portrait of a former police recruit taken near her home outside of Wisconsin on Sept. 17, 2023. The two men she accused of sexual assault are no longer in law enforcement, but could be eligible to reapply to a law enforcement academy as early as next year. (Jenn Ackerman for Wisconsin Watch)

In an interview Grand Chute Capt. Colette Jaeger said investigators believed the woman was telling the truth, but the evidence they found — which included video surveillance footage from the hotel lobby — wasn’t consistent with someone being incapacitated to the point of being sexually assaulted.

“She reported sexual assault, and then the elements of the crime just weren’t able to be confirmed, validated,” Jaeger said. “I mean, what we were left with was her saying she did not give consent and then two other stories as well as video evidence that didn’t support that.”

Much of the woman’s account to investigators took place in the early morning when she said she was still reeling from more than 10 alcoholic drinks the night before.

“By her own statement, (she) could not recall if she had said yes to the encounter occurring and she did not recall what had occurred,” detective Sgt. Joe Teigen wrote in his summary explaining why criminal charges were not filed.

Ian Henderson, an attorney and policy director for the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said when police officers are involved in a critical incident like a shooting it’s standard practice to give them time to cool down and collect their thoughts before taking a definitive statement.

That the female recruit was confused and expressed doubt over what had just happened immediately after a traumatic event should not be a surprise. “Doing a comprehensive, investigative interview, a day or two after the assault” is considered “best practice,” Henderson said.

But investigators notified all three within 34 hours that criminal charges weren’t being filed. Peterson said his department didn’t rush anything.

“The length of time is not a good indicator of the quality of the investigation,” Peterson said. “I think it was very thoroughly investigated. So, I do feel sorry for the experience that (she) went through. But I do think she was treated with respect.”

Grand Chute police officials confirmed they have no plans to reactivate the investigation. The toxicology report found no evidence of foul play such as a date rape drug in her system.

No professional standards for potential conflicts

Wisconsin state law requires police agencies to call in third-party investigators in critical incidents when officers kill or seriously wound someone in the line of duty.

But the law only applies to those narrow circumstances. And professional standards don’t provide concrete guidance over investigations when there are potential conflicts of interest, said Glendale Police Chief Mark Ferguson, president of the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Accreditation Group.

“We do not have a specific standard that covers an agency requesting another agency to conduct an investigation,” he said.

Grand Chute’s police chief disputed that there were any conflicts in investigating an alleged crime against the recruit while she was separately under administrative scrutiny.

“There usually isn’t a conflict associated with investigating somebody who has been a victim of a crime,” Peterson said.

Daniel Shaw, regional program manager for the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), of which Grand Chute is not a member, said agencies may conduct personnel investigations with regard to administrative violations of policy and procedure. But the group recommends that agencies not investigate their own employees alleged to have committed crimes.

If an officer under a personnel investigation is an alleged crime victim, Shaw said he would want an outside agency to review the case.

“I guess if that happened in my jurisdiction, I'd want to give it to some other agency,” said Shaw, who was a police chief in a mid-sized Michigan city for a decade. “That's my personal view — not a CALEA view.”

Marsy’s Law and victim rights invoked to withhold records

When Wisconsin Watch initially requested Grand Chute’s report on the alleged sexual assault during an investigation into sexual harassment within the Sheboygan Police Department, Grand Chute police declined to release even a redacted version of the report, claiming even associations could violate the privacy of victims.

“It is critical for us to consider the potential adverse effects that may occur if such sensitive records were to be released,” Jaeger, the Grand Chute police captain, wrote in denying Wisconsin Watch’s request.

The department refused to release any narrative — even without names.

“It is more complicated than simply redacting a name in an investigation of this nature,” Jaeger wrote.

Outagamie County District Attorney Melinda Tempelis — whose office has a role enforcing the public records law — agreed with the police department and declined to intervene.

Resignation not voluntary

Five days after the incident the woman was told her employment was over due to the findings of the administrative inquiry. She had a choice: be terminated or immediately resign.

Writing two days after she resigned, Peterson noted in an administrative review that her alleged disparagement of the department to fellow students could damage the agency’s reputation and make it harder to recruit.

Peterson denies any correlation between her departure and her allegation of a crime.

“The episode at the hotel had already taken place — it didn't change or alter my assessment of the administrative violations,” Peterson told Wisconsin Watch. The administrative violations warranted “substantial discipline up to and including termination. It became moot, you know, she had chosen to resign.”

Town of Grand Chute Human Resources Director Sue Brinkman was among those present when the woman was called in on the last day of her job. She confirmed her resignation was not voluntary.

Male recruits lose their jobs

The two men also lost their jobs with their respective police departments.

Appleton police declined to answer questions, but it did release a summary of its disciplinary review to Wisconsin Watch following a public records request. Grand Chute’s police chief contacted his Appleton counterpart the evening of March 3, 2022, to notify him that Appleton’s recruit was the subject of a sexual assault complaint.

Appleton Police Chief Todd Thomas wrote that the recruit was terminated for “immoral” and “unbecoming” conduct three days later. That was after receiving a copy of Grand Chute’s incident report that concluded there was no probable cause for his arrest.

The recruit, who had previously resigned after about a year and a half as a prison guard at Oshkosh Correctional, returned to his job as a corrections officer at the medium-security prison.

The Sheboygan recruit resigned from his job on March 15, 2022.

“I am grateful for the support and belief you all had in me,” he wrote. “It brings me sadness and disappointment to have to submit this letter, but I am honored to have had the time spent with this department.”

College mum on sexual misconduct complaints

Fox Valley Technical College officials wouldn’t say how many sexual misconduct investigations they have conducted at the law enforcement academy in the past five years.

College investigators reviewed Grand Chute’s reports and conducted interviews with three additional witnesses who were at the bars with all three that evening, according to a May 27, 2022, letter outlining the college’s investigation.

College administrators found the woman’s account credible and moved to sanction the two male students.

“After reviewing the evidence and credibility of the witness statements, the preponderance of the evidence outlined above leads me to the finding that the complainant was unable to give valid consent to sexual intercourse due to her incapacitation,” wrote college Associate Vice President Elizabeth Burns.

College administration and law enforcement academy officials declined to answer questions.

“We respect the rights of our students and alumni to share their own experiences,” the college said in an unsigned statement.

The female recruit returned to the academy the following week and went on to graduate in May. She said she was warned not to discuss the incident and deliberately skipped the graduation ceremony.

“Going back to the academy as a whole was probably like, one of the hardest things I’ve done,” she said. “I was very isolated from my classmates.”

The Outagamie district attorney concurred with the decision not to bring charges against the men.

“Although I don’t remember the specific facts, there was a consensus between the investigator and me that this was not a case that could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” Outagamie County Assistant District Attorney Randall Schneider — a former high-ranking state Department of Justice official — wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch.

“If additional information has come to light, this decision can be reevaluated,” he added.

Neither of the men is employed by a police department. The Department of Justice lists the Appleton recruit as “terminated for cause” and the Sheboygan recruit as resigned “prior to completion of internal investigation.”

They could apply to have their suspension from the college lifted next year.

Wisconsin Watch reporter Phoebe Petrovic contributed to this report.