“I have determined that it is in the best interest of my constituents and my family to end my time in Congress at the end of this year and not seek re-election,” she said in a Facebook post. “Too many women have been harmed by harassment in the workplace. In the terrible situation in my office, I could have and should have done better.”
Via Congresswoman Esty Leaving Elected Office | CAFFEINATED POLITICS
Gov. Scott Walker has claimed he only recently learned about the problems at Lincoln Hills, but there is a mountain of evidence suggesting otherwise. Back in February 2012, Walker received a letter from Racine County Circuit Judge Richard Kreul about Lincoln Hills, as the Journal Sentinel has reported. The letter included a copy of a memo detailing the beating and sexual assault of a boy and the failure of Lincoln Hills staff to notify law enforcement and child protective services. “The indifference in this sordid tale is absolutely inexcusable,” Kreul wrote.
Michael J. Hicks.
Via Milwaukee defense lawyer suspended 2 years @ JSOnline Proof and Hearsay Blog.
After weeks of the governor insisting none of this was shared with him, the Journal Sentinel did a public records request asking the Walker administration for documents related to Lincoln Hills. The documents showed Walker’s office “was told multiple times over the past year about problems… including claims of violence against youths and staff, inadequate classroom time, and the need to improve sexual assault safeguards,” the newspaper reported. “On July 28, Kevin McCarthy, a retired corrections employee living near the Irma prison, wrote the governor’s office that he was concerned about the safety of his daughter and friends, who still work at the facility. ‘You have staff who are being assaulted, youth who are being assaulted, doors being broken, windows broken… does the sheriff’s department or state police need to get involved when the staff at Lincoln Hills’” lose control of the institution? McCarthy wrote.
Via Murphy’s Law: Why Walker Allowed Lincoln Hills Abuses @ Urban Milwaukee
Madison— When a Racine County youth was sexually assaulted and beaten in a Northwoods prison in 2012, state officials told his mother that something had happened but didn’t share with her the full and troubling picture.
The woman was contacted the next day and in the following days county officials were contacted as well, with officials at the Lincoln Hills School for Boys telling the county that the youth had been moved into a security unit, county records show. Inmates are typically sent there for acting out at the state-run prison 30 miles north of Wausau.
What the mother was not told is that on Jan. 13, 2012, another inmate had forced her son to perform a sex act and then struck him.
The woman instead waited more than two weeks to learn the ugly extent of the incident, in which her son waited for hours to be taken to a hospital and for which the aggressor was eventually convicted. It took repeated questioning from Racine County officials to bring the crime to light….
This case is the second shared with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in which a parent of a Lincoln Hills inmate learned of an attack against their son from someone else and not from the state officials charged with keeping him safe. Milwaukee County officials also learned from a tipster about youths from their county having their arms or wrists broken in November 2014….
Via Mother left in dark about son’s sexual assault, beating at Lincoln Hills @ JSOnline.
Madison— State Corrections Secretary Ed Wall has resigned from his post amid a growing scandal over conditions at a troubled Northwoods prison for youth, and the FBI has taken over the sprawling criminal probe into alleged abuses there.
While Wall will leave his post next month, taxpayers may have to pay him for a year while he is not working. He plans to return to a job he had with an agency involved in the probe of Lincoln Hills School for Boys, and if he does he will be put on paid leave to protect the integrity of the probe, a state Department of Justice spokeswoman said.
Word about Wall’s plans came Friday as U.S. Attorney John Vaudreuil said federal authorities are leading the investigation, which is focusing on possible civil rights violations by staff at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake School for Girls, which share a campus 30 miles north of Wausau….
Via Corrections secretary resigns amid Lincoln Hills probe @ JSOnline.
New audio: Union official said Wisconsin lawmakers told of Tomah VA deaths in 2008 https://t.co/NQXpLxhoAd via @DanielBice
— Mary Spicuzza (@MSpicuzzaMJS) January 25, 2016
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'Disagree' is conveniently ambiguous – it's really 'Walker Blames Schimel' @patrickdmarley
— John Adams (@DailyAdams) January 13, 2016
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A Menomonee Falls architecture and construction firm has agreed to pay $3 million to settle civil and criminal charges that it defrauded the federal government’s “Buy American” rules for contractors.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Novum Structures repackaged steel and other construction materials from foreign countries to appear as if it were sourced in the United States. The firm used the materials on government projects around the country, like a courthouse in Illinois, a transit center in Miami and street car expansion in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina….
A year ago, a former executive at Novum was charged in state court with embezzling more than $168,000 from the company, money prosecutors said he used to buy a horse and airplane. That case is set for trial in April.
A spokesman for the company said that case had no connection to the federal claims.
Via Falls firm to pay $3 million for violating ‘Buy American’ rules @ JSOnline.
Second federal complaint against UW-Whitewater in eighteen months:
Raechel Liska, aged 22. Photo from Channel 3000.
“I got assaulted twice,” Liska said. “Once by my attacker, which was the traumatic, horrific part, but again by the school, which was the betrayal.”
Liska said UWW Dean of Students Mary Beth Mackin violated her civil rights by refusing to interview two witnesses and by not accepting either the police report or her medical records stemming from the incident. She also asserts Mackin did not issue a no-contact order against her alleged attacker, even as he retaliated and intimidated her after she spoke to authorities. Further, it was the Army that stepped in and removed her assailant from her classes three months after the incident in question, even after she’d asked the university to do the same multiple times, only to be rebuffed.
“The reason I filed my complaint is because something here needs to change,” she said. “I thought the dean of students would be protecting the students, protecting me. She’s the dean of students. I thought I’d be her priority, but I walked out feeling like protecting the school was her top priority.”
Via Sex assault survivor claims discrimination by university @ Channel 3000.
According to a probable cause statement written by Mequon police, the woman told police that she drove up to Hale and his two golfing partners to see if anyone needed a beverage.
Hale told the others to play ahead, she said, and asked the woman for a hug. She told police she agreed to the hug, which she termed a normal request by Hale.But this time, she said, Hale slid his hands to her buttocks, underneath her shorts, and grabbed her breasts over her clothing, before putting his hand inside the front of her shorts and touching her genitals.
Via Lawyer accused of molesting cart attendant crafted club’s settlement offer @ JSOnline.
Under the terms of the agreement, hundreds of men and women who filed sex abuse claims in the bankruptcy would receive a financial settlement.
Archdiocese settles sexual abuse claims for $21 million @ JSOnline.
The court said accepted a referee’s finding that D’Arruda, 47, had engaged in more than 40 instances of professional misconduct, primarily accepting advance fees in cases in which he later did little or no work, including several cases he took when he knew his license was about to be temporarily suspended in 2014.
According to the court’s decision, D’Arruda never responded to the Officer of Lawyer Regulation complaints against him, and was therefore found in default. In addition to the three-year suspension, D’Arrude [sic] was ordered to pay $6,500 restitution to some clients, and more than $2,300 in costs.
Via Milwaukee defense attorney suspended for 3 years @ JS Proof and Hearsay Blog.
Are we finally done with the whole “Put Pete Rose in the Baseball Hall of Fame” thing now? Ever since Rose voluntarily accepted a lifetime ban from baseball by Commissioner Bart Giamatti we have heard ad nauseum from Rose apologists who say he should be inducted because the Hall is only about what a person…
“The top two police officials in Beloit have been placed on administrative leave, effective immediately, after a review of the department questioned its “leadership and management.”
Beloit Police Chief Norm Jacobs and Deputy Chief Tom Dunkin were put on administrative leave pending an investigation, according to City Manager Lori Curtis Luther.”
Via Beloit police chief, deputy chief placed on leave @ State Journal.
Via Denny Hastert “was a bland, utterly conventional supporter of the status quo; his idea of reform was to squelch…” @ Althouse.