Walkergate: Looking Up Some Old Friends

Here's a couple of things to keep the appetite for all things Walkergate whetted:

Well, Hello Kelly, Part II

Remember how Kelly Rindfleisch and her attorney, Frank Gimbel, kept trying to argue that she had universal immunity which protected her through all time and space?  As I had predicted, they were denied.

Undaunted, they tried again, this time using the Kastiger maneuver. (Kastiger is Universal Immunity in legalese, or something like that.)

The Honorable David Hansher said that he'd have his decision last Friday. He was a few days late with it, but that's OK.

The ruling was still MOTION DENIED.

Is Russell A Marked Man?

On Monday, we learned the identity of Tim Russell's fifth attorney. He's a young lawyer named Parker Mathers.

However, we knew precious little about him other than he graduated from Marquette University in 2010.

Then a savvy reader picked up on his name being affiliated with some events on Barack Obama's event page.

Tuesday afternoon, Dan Bice confirmed that Mathers had been a former field operative for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. From what I have learned on my own, he was involved in GOTV kind of work.

The remarkable thing is that out of Russell's five attorneys, all but one has been Democrats or have Democratic leanings. The only one who was Republican was Dennis Krueger, his last one before Mathers, who got kicked off the case when it was revealed that he secretly had taken a job as a state prosecutor in Fond du Lac County.

It gives one pause to wonder if Russell is deliberately picking Democratic attorneys. It could be that he is angling to get a plea bargain and figures that a Democratic attorney might be able to get him a better deal. Or it could be that he is concerned that Walker would find out what his intentions are and try to interfere in some way.

Then again, it could be that Walker put out the word to Republican lawyers to stay clear of Russell although that seems rather counter intuitive. I'd think Walker would be trying to get an inside scoop to what's happening so that his handlers could get a step on their spin and possibly set Russell up to the be the patsy.

A third possibility would be that the Republican attorneys are purposely avoiding the case so they don't get taken down with this lot of unethical weasels.

Speaking of Dennis Krueger

When it came to light that Krueger had taken a job as a state prosecutor in Fond du Lac County, Judge Hansher was fit to be tied and told Kreuger that he was considering filing a complaint against him.

Now Krueger has a second high profile case in a mess and another judge mad as hell at him:

Wasserman called Krueger "a mole" working for the state among the defense. The defense strategy was not only acquired by the state via Krueger, the motion read, "it was formulated by the state through and by Krueger."

At a hearing July 23, Krueger withdrew from the Cullen case, but not before he took heat from Circuit Judge David Borowski. who said he was considering a complaint to the Office of Lawyer Regulation. When he asked Krueger how he thought he could apply for a prosecutor's job and accept it while actively representing Cullen in plea negotiations, Krueger had no answer.

"To say 'I don't have an explanation' is not acceptable," Borowski said. He told Krueger, "You and your office in Fond du Lac have some explaining to do."

He gave the state two weeks to respond to Wasserman's motion.

And While We're Talking About Laywers

I've questioned before just how Rindfleisch is able to afford a high caliber, high cost attorney like Franklyn Gimbel. I've heard Walker has his people, including campaign manager Keith Gilke doing some fundraising on the side for Kelly.

But could there be other things at play?

Gimbel is the chairman of the Wisconsin Center District board. His appointment expired three months ago. One would think that Scott Walker would want to put his own people in there immediately, as he is wont to do everywhere else. Or are there other considerations at play here?

One thing we know is that Rindfleisch probably isn't paying for Gimbel's legal services on her own. She's not very good at doing an honest day's work.

Collateral Damage

There's been a couple of stories that resulted in the fallout of Walkergate that should be addressed. This is as just as good a place and time as any.

When Tim Russell was arrested and charged, it was mentioned in the criminal complaint against him that another higher ranking county official, Jim Tietjen, was part of Russell's phony group which was allegedly handling the funds for Operation Freedom.

Tietjen denied any knowledge of being on the board of this group and the issue was dropped. Or so we thought.

The DA's office apparently found stuff. Although the powers that be deemed it not to be enough for prosecution, it was an offense worth getting fired over, and maybe costing him his pension:

It's a violation of county ethics rules for officials to take money or gifts from someone seeking county business. Email and video evidence showed Tietjen's landscape employees were doing work for two county vendors, according to the memo, written by Hector Colon, who heads the county's Department of Health and Human Services.

Tietjen said that work wasn't a payback for a county contract. He said he has nothing to do with county procurement.

"I put nothing in my pocket," he said.

Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern declined to comment Monday on whether prosecutors were investigating Tietjen. County Auditor Jerome Heer said he couldn't comment on a review of a personnel matter.

Numerous emails sent over the past year and uncovered by county officials found that Tietjen was doing work on his landscaping business during his county workday. Tietjen admitted doing so when he was confronted, according to the memo by Colon, who is Tietjen's boss.

Tietjen also had his work email forwarded to his county email account, "thus allowing him to do his personal business during county time," Colon's memo says.

Tietjen said his son had his Duke's Landscaping email forwarded to his county account. The elder Tietjen said he didn't know how to change it back. Besides, he's put in many extra hours for the county that would far offset any time spent reading email for his landscaping business, he said.

Tietjen also was fired for ordering a subordinate to solicit money from county vendors for "Operation Freedom," an annual picnic for veterans at the Milwaukee County Zoo hosted by Gov. Scott Walker while he was county executive, according to the Colon memo.

Tietjen acknowledged he had done that but said it was six or more years ago when Walker was county executive. Tietjen said no pressure was put on any county vendor to donate to the veterans' event.

Tietjen's "numerous violations" of county rules "warrant immediate termination," Colon wrote in the memo Friday - the day Tietjen was terminated.

What's not been reported anywhere else is that as soon as this story hit the newsstands, one of his top subordinates retired immediately. Another subordinate quit for unknown reasons, but speculation is that it was somehow tied to Tietjen's firing.

More recently, another Walker appointee, Freida Webb, just got suspended from her job and is accused of embezzling money meant to go to minority-owned vendors.

However there is another story regarding how Milwaukee County has to pay back the feds for improperly used HUD funding which should shoot of alarms for even the most obtuse person:

Two of the improper allocations went to the county's Community Development Business Partners, whose director Freida Webb was arrested and briefly jailed July 19. The county's repayment included nearly $28,000 directed to Webb's program and $18,400 the county gave to the Milwaukee Urban League for work on the same program.

Webb helped create a phony contract for classes to help aspiring minority and female contractors get certified for the county's disadvantaged business contracting program, according to court records. She also participated in a double-billing scheme involving a local contractor and took kickbacks totaling $3,430 from the contractor, according to an affidavit by an investigator for the district attorney's office. Webb was suspended without pay from her $82,000 a year job pending the outcome of an ongoing criminal investigation.

[...]

County Executive Chris Abele said his administration pursued reforms after it was made aware of HUD concerns late last year.

"Due to a lack of administrative oversight of the CDBG program by prior administrations, several ineligible projects were approved and funded in previous years," Abele said in a statement. A more objective process for reviewing and approving applicants for block grant aid was put in place, he said.

The county's list of 2011 projects for HUD funding was developed in 2010 by Timothy Russell, who was then the county housing director. Russell faces unrelated felony embezzlement charges in Circuit Court.

I had heard rumors a long long time ago that Russell might have been inappropriately diverting HUD funding for illegal purposes, but couldn't find anything to verify that. It just might be time to make another look into that.

Heh. I guess there was more than what I had originally thought. I should've known. A wise man once said that with all things Walker, there's more. There's always more.

Walkergate: You Don't Suppose...

I received an email from a faithful reader today that got me musing over the latest bit of news to come from the ongoing saga of Walkergate in which Tim Russell's fourth attorney, Dennis Krueger, opened the door for Attorney #5 by getting a job as a state prosecutor in Fond du Lac County.

The question is just how did he swing that deal?

Now, Fond du Lac County's District Attorney's Office has been known to make some boneheaded moves, so Krueger might fit in, although if incompetence is a standard for them, Krueger just might be overqualified. After all, he is the one that helped former Waukesha County DA Paul Bucher blow the case against Mark Chmura:

Earlier in the day, Boyle tried to raise questions of misconduct when he questioned an assistant prosecutor.

Waukesha County Assistant District Attorney Dennis Krueger, who was removed from Chmura's case last month so he could testify as a witness, said that he moved parts of a defense exhibit and he has watched parts of other testimony on television in alleged violation of a court order.

"I am offended," Boyle told the judge, after a heated cross-examination. "I think it goes to his motive, his bias and his involvement."

Bucher told the judge that Krueger had done nothing wrong.

"Mr. Boyle feels he has the right to trash anyone's reputation in the defense of his client. He's playing for the cameras," Bucher said.

"Let's bring it down a notch, both of you," Gempeler said.

Krueger was a prosecutor assigned to Chmura's case, but Gempeler removed him from the team so that he could testify about a meeting with key defense witness Michael Kleber.

Krueger testified that he and Bucher never coerced Kleber, a high school football star who attended the post-prom party, to change his original statement.

Kleber initially told police that he saw Chmura's accuser go into the bathroom with a smile. He later changed his statement to say he remembered little about the night because he had been drinking. On the stand last week, he gave an account similar to his original statement.

But did Krueger have any help getting that state job?

Frankly, I don't know.

But if he did, it would require someone who would want Russell's trial delayed and the pull to make the hiring happen to accomplish the delay.

And there's only one person who fits that description. And that same person already has a certain level of familiarity with Krueger and has helped him in the past:

Republican Waukesha County District Attorney Candidate Dennis Krueger has officially filed his nomination papers at the State Elections Board and also picked up a major endorsement from Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker.

And if one reads the press release further, they would see a lot of familiar names who have been of note lately for their allegiance to Walker and the Kochs:

In addition to Scott Walker and Republican Representative Gundrum and Waukesha County Executive Vrakas, Krueger has also been endorsed by Republican State Senators Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), Ted Kanavas (R-Brookfield), and Neil Kedzie (R-Elkorn), and State Representatives Joel Kleefisch (R-Oconomowoc), Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa), Ann Nischke (R-Waukesha), and Don Pridemore (R-Hartford). Former Congressman Mark Neumann, his wife Sue, Hartland Police Chief Robert Rosch and many other law enforcement officials are supporting Dennis in his bid to replace Paul Bucher.

But I'm sure that's all just coincidence, right?

Walkergate: Is There A Lawyer In The House?

On Thursday, I pointed out that Tim Russell goes through lawyers like Scott Walker goes through campaign promises - neither one can keep one to save their soul (if they had one, that is).

Russell's first, and longest lasting, attorney, Michael Maistelman got pulled when it came out that he was going to be a possible witness for the prosecution, presumably for the bid-rigging that was going on in Walker's administration as county executive.

Russell's first criminal defense attorney, Andrew Franklin, quit when he wasn't getting paid.

His second criminal defense attorney quit after Russell refused to cooperate with him.

On Thursday, we learned that Russell's most recent attorney, Dennis Krueger, might not be representing Russell for long.

And boy, oh boy, is he so not going to be on the case. It turns out that Krueger took a job as a state prosecutor in Fond du Lac County sometime in June, although I've heard it might have been as early as April. This would obviously become a conflict of interest.  Furthermore, he never notified his clients, including Russell.  In fact word is, Krueger never even notified Maistelman even though he was only days from leaving permanently.

Needless to say, Judge David Hansher was not at all pleased at this turn of events. From an article written by Steve Schultze of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Krueger said his new boss, Fond du Lac County District Attorney Dan Kaminsky, agreed to let him work part time while he continued to work on the Russell case. That might not happen now.

Hansher said Krueger had been "unprofessional and hypocritical" in failing to disclose his new job, and the judge said he may file a complaint against Krueger with the state Office of Lawyer Regulation accusing him of professional misconduct.

Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf said Krueger had a legal conflict of interest in acting as Russell's defense attorney while at the same time working as a state prosecutor. That might also be a violation of ethical rules, Landgraf said.

Krueger said keeping mum about his new prosecutor's job was in the best interests of his client.

Landgraf said he had no objection to giving Russell a week to figure out his options on who will represent him. But Landgraf said it appeared inevitable that Russell will have to get another lawyer, a development that could cause a significant delay in Russell's trial.

Now Russell, whose savings must be running on fumes by now, has to go out and find a fifth attorney to represent him and try to salvage the damage done by Krueger, including any possible plea deals.

And that's no small task either.  Russell will have to find a lawyer that is competent, willing to work for cheap or at the risk of not getting paid for a long time and isn't already involved in the Walkergate investigation in some fashion.*  Russell is probably sitting at home, already picturing himself in orange.

If the prosecutors are waiting to go after the other targets of the John Doe until they resolve the cases against Russell, Darlene Wink and Kelly Rindfleisch, that means this could go on well into next year, at the very least.  But that is what happens when prosecutors go after a mafia-like operations.

*Interestingly, these three requirements eliminate Attorney Paul Bucher, who fails on all three requirements.

Walkergate: The Leak-Proof Investigation

For months, Scott Walker's apologists and other employees of the Koch Brothers/Bradley Foundation/Sam Adams Alliance have done their darnedest in an effort to impugn the good name of Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and to smear the fine men and women in his office who work diligently to see that justice is served. They have accused them of all sorts of tawdry, and utterly false, transgressions ranging from having a bias to questioning their professionalism to committing the illegal act of violating secrecy orders by "leaking" information.

They have even gone so far as trying to smear the Honorable Neal P. Nettesheim, the judge who is presiding over the Walkergate investigation.

Things had gotten so far out of hand that some of the most prestigious names in Wisconsin legal circles - including, but not limited to, Retired Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske, retired Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann and former Kenosha County District Attorney Robert Jambois - penned a letter condemning these false attacks and smear jobs.

But the attacks continued, not because the slanderers had valid points, but because they were - and still are - afraid that their shooting star, Scott Walker, is truly a corrupt bastard and will face the consequences of all of his illegal activities.

Every time a new piece of information came out, radio squawkers like Charlie Sykes, Jeff Wagner and Vicki McKenna would squawk about the "leaks" and saying that the investigation was "leaking like a sieve."  They never offered any proof to support their allegations of illegal conduct.  Instead, they relied on the axiom that if you tell a lie big enough and often enough, people will believe it.

After I wrote about the Russell Revelations, another round of accusations of leaks sprung up.

Let's take a look at these "leaks", shall we?

First of all, most of the information that has been reported comes from public records, like the number or criminal charges and other documents filed with the courts during the indictment and legal proceedings for the six people already charged and/or convicted.

But these are, by far, not the only sources of information.

From Marie Rohde's article on WisPolitics.com, we see that a lot of information came from Darlene Wink's attorney:

In response to Russell’s claim about the John Doe investigation being "not-so-secret," Landgraf also notes that while his office has been accused of leaking secret information, it was actually lawyers for defendants who contacted members of the media, at least once with Russell’s approval.

The motion also cites an email sent by John Hiller, Walker’s former campaign treasurer who headed up the guv's transition team in late 2010.

The motion reprints an email Hiller sent Walker on Sept. 26, 2010. In it he outlined a story that would appear the following Monday regarding the investigation. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporter Dan Bice, according to the email, said the story would focus on a railroad owner’s illegal campaign donations and was not a “blockbuster.”

Hiller said Bice also indicated that he got much of his information from Chris Weismueller, a lawyer representing Darlene Wink, a former county employee of Walker's who has pleaded guilty to doing campaign work on county time.

Bice said there was "nothing nefarious" in the sourcing for the story and that all of Weismueller's comments were on the record.

As for Hiller, Bice said Hiller contacted him after he called Walker for comment.

It's not surprising that Wesimueller would be talking.  He was between a rock and a hard place in trying to defend his client.  He took the approach of "Yeah, but look at what those guys did," in an effort to make his client appear innocence, or at least not as guilty as the other defendants.

We also see that Tim Russell's lawyers have been giving away information..  As I posted in the article about Russell's Revelations, one of his attorney's Michael Maistelman sent an email to squawk radio personality Charlie Sykes:

Rick Esenberg dismissed this email because Maistelman "heard" about some "gossip" that this was going to go down. (By the way, Mr. Esenberg, that bit of "gossip," as you quaintly put it, could have been a very educated guess based on my first article about Kelly Rindfleisch, which I wrote the day before the email and five days before Rindlfeisch and Wink were arrested.)

Again, that Maistelman would tweak Sykes about this should not be a surprise.  While Maistelman is a very competent attorney and represents clients from all over the political spectrum, he is also a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat.  If he learned of something, say from a very popular liberal blog, he is going to naturally try to share that information with as many sources as possible.

John Chisholm
image courtesy of
Labor Press

We also need to keep in mind that, while there is a secrecy order associated with John Doe investigations, such as Walkergate, this only applies to the person's testimony, per se.  Since Maistelman never represented Wink or Rindfleisch, nor was present during their participation in the investigation, he is not bound by the secrecy order regarding them.

The real outrage with that aspect of the story is that Sykes continued to tell his fabricated and conflated complaints of there being so many "leaks."

And then there is Maistelman's colleague, Dennis Krueger. Krueger was the one that released the information, with Russell's permission, which showed that Walker was stonewalling the Walkergate investigation from the outset, refusing to release information to the DA's Office.

Krueger has a history of being overzealous in his cases, as evidenced in his participation in the criminal case against former Green Bay Packer tight end Mark Chmura:

Earlier in the day, Boyle tried to raise questions of misconduct when he questioned an assistant prosecutor.

Waukesha County Assistant District Attorney Dennis Krueger, who was removed from Chmura's case last month so he could testify as a witness, said that he moved parts of a defense exhibit and he has watched parts of other testimony on television in alleged violation of a court order.

"I am offended," Boyle told the judge, after a heated cross-examination. "I think it goes to his motive, his bias and his involvement."

Bucher told the judge that Krueger had done nothing wrong.

"Mr. Boyle feels he has the right to trash anyone's reputation in the defense of his client. He's playing for the cameras," Bucher said.

"Let's bring it down a notch, both of you," Gempeler said.

Krueger was a prosecutor assigned to Chmura's case, but Gempeler removed him from the team so that he could testify about a meeting with key defense witness Michael Kleber.

Krueger testified that he and Bucher never coerced Kleber, a high school football star who attended the post-prom party, to change his original statement.

However, one can hardly accuse Krueger of playing partisan politics with his release of information. After all, when Krueger made an unsuccessful run for Waukesha County District Attorney, his release announcing his filing of papers included an endorsement by - wait for it - Scott Walker.

As the gentle reader can clearly see, there have been no "leaks" from this investigation.  A lot of the information has been gathered from public documents such as the criminal charges, subsequent motions and the grants of immunity, which by law has to be made public. Much of the information also comes from the lawyers themselves, with the expressed permission of their clients, in an effort to try to manipulate the outcomes for their clients.  Finally, the rest of the information comes from common knowledge and good old-fashion investigative reporting.

The only leaks involved with theWalkergate investigation involves the ones in the arguments that there are any leaks in the first place.