Date: 5/29/2009
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit that claims the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled this week the case brought by the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation can move forward with discovery.
A federal law sets the first Thursday in May as the day for presidents to issue proclamations asking Americans to pray.
Crabb says the nation’s largest group of atheists and agnostics faces a heavy burden in proving the tradition violates the separation of church and state. But she says it should have an opportunity to do so.
The Obama administration and National Day of Prayer Task Force filed motions to dismiss the case, but Crabb rejected them as premature.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
More Internet predators are challenging agents
Date: 3/20/2009 3:44 PM
By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Eric Szatkowski is a Wisconsin Justice Department special agent, but on that Sunday afternoon he entered an online chat room as a 14-year-old boy.
He claimed he was into weightlifting, AC/DC and muscle magazines. Then he waited.
Within hours, screen name Paul2u sent a message: “Hi. u realy 14?”
Over the past decade, agents and computer experts have gone after hundreds of people like Paul2u who solicit sex from kids or trade child pornography online. Police efforts around the country were all the rage with the media in the early 2000s, reaching a crescendo with Dateline NBC’s “To Catch A Predator” series.
Despite the publicity then and now, the bad guys haven’t gone away. They’ve quietly multiplied. Trading child porn online and grooming underage targets in chat rooms has exploded nationwide. With arrests more than quadrupling in 10 years, Wisconsin’s agents and analysts feel overwhelmed.
“I don’t think we’ve made significant progress at all,” Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said. “Our community leaders don’t even know how bad the problem is. The general population has no idea.”
In the past year, Van Hollen has raised the profile of Wisconsin’s Internet Crimes Against Children, or ICAC, unit, recruited local police departments to help and asked for more state dollars to help agents like Szatkowski, who adopted the 14-year-old’s persona.
“If I’m too young that’s ok,” the agent wrote back to Paul2u that Sunday back in 2002, adding: “Lots of dudes call me jail bait.”
“Well, yeah, if you get caught,” Paul2u replied, “but if you’re willing its doable.”
The hook was set.
___
The Internet was just gaining traction when an online child porn arrest was made by Wisconsin’s Justice Department in 1995. The next year saw six arrests. The year after that, 13. By then agency officials realized what the future held, said Mike Myszewski, administrator of department’s Criminal Investigation unit.
Using $300,000 in federal seed money, he set up one of the first units to combat Internet crimes against children. Today about 60 such task forces exist nationwide.
Szatkowski, a homicide investigator with years of undercover experience, was an early volunteer for the group, which focused at first on “travelers,” people like Paul2u who solicit sex from children online and arrange meetings with them. The unit made 18 arrests the first year, 36 in 2000 and 24 in 2001.
The numbers from units across the country were so encouraging federal officials thought they could eradicate chat room solicitation within three years, Myszewski said.
Then computers and Internet connections got cheap. More people could afford to go online. The bad guys got smarter, too. They wanted to talk to the person on the other end of the modem and see photographs. “To Catch a Predator” only made them more cautious, Szatkowski said. Wisconsin arrests dropped, from 24 in 2001 to 17 in 2002 to 11 in 2003.
Meanwhile, online child porn became more sophisticated. New peer-to-peer file sharing software enabled porn purveyors to send photographs and videos directly to each other’s computers in seconds, anywhere in the world.
___
Szatkowski and Paul2u exchanged messages for an hour.
Paul2u asked Szatkowski about his sexual experience with men and said he’d love to see him more than once. At one point Paul2u asked Szatkowski if he was a cop. They agreed to exchange photos.
Szatkowski sent a photo of Racine County Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Prochaska when Prochaska was 13. Szatkowski typed that he could sneak out but didn’t want to spend all night with him. He had school in the morning.
Fine, Paul2u replied. They could “do it” in his van.
Paul2u asked Szatkowski to call him. Prochaska made the call and agreed to meet Paul2u in half an hour.
Szatkowski glanced at Paul2u’s photograph, hit print and rushed out of the office without taking a second look. Later, he wished he had.
___
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s cyber tip line took 85,301 reports of child porn and 8,787 reports of online enticement last year. Investigations of Internet crimes against children resulted in 3,000 arrests nationwide in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The statistics show how an entire generation has moved online, seeking reinforcement from others with the same abhorrent sexual tastes, said Michelle Collins, executive director of the missing children center’s exploited child division.
Most disturbing is the correlation between child porn and enticement, said Wisconsin forensic computer analyst Dave Matthews. Viewing leads to doing, he said.
“They’re grooming themselves,” Matthews said.
Wisconsin’s unit moved from busting travelers to taking down porn users. The state justice department began training every criminal agent in its Division of Criminal Investigation to help, Msyzewski said. Arrests have hovered around 100 annually since 2004.
___
Szatkowski, his partner, Mike Hoell, and Prochaska sat at a Country Kitchen in Racine, watching the clock as they waited for Paul2u. Prochaska, playing the role of the boy, wore a yellow jacket and backward baseball cap.
They talked about everything Paul2u had said to Szatkowski online and how they hoped he would park in front, where they’d see him. They kept looking around, making sure Paul2u hadn’t come in through a back door.
Around 10:45 p.m., a brown Ford van pulled into the parking lot and flashed its lights at Prochaska.
___
Ramping up the fight against child cyber crime comes with a price.
The Wisconsin task force’s five full-time agents and six full-time computer analysts are swamped, mentally and physically. They analyze hard drives, catalog tips, write search warrant affidavits and criminal complaints, break down doors, and interview children as young as 3.
On a recent winter morning, agent Jenniffer Price was working 43 cases, all stacked neatly on her Madison office desk.
“We simply don’t have enough cops on the street to do the work that needs to be done,” Price said. “We’ve got so many offenders out there. I just see the balloon getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”
The work takes its toll.
Szatkowski barred his children from sleepovers, instant messaging, social networking and online games when they were young.
Matthews, a unit analyst since 2005, specializes in tracking down porn users. In the last six months he’s identified about 50 leads for agents that have resulted in cases.
He said the Internet has become an adult bookstore that pushes sexual deviants to act on their desires for children. He copes by not socializing with other ICAC agents and keeping his imagination in check.
“Mainly you just shut down a part of your brain that makes you feel like crap,” Matthews said.
Analyst Chris Byars spends days scanning seized porn for clues. Last summer she sat outside her home in central Wisconsin, trying to watch people stroll by, and had to go inside.
“All of a sudden I’m wondering how many people in Lodi right now are assaulting or abusing their children,” she said. “I don’t think you can turn it off.”
Meanwhile, Van Hollen, the attorney general, has worked to draw attention to cyber crimes and get ICAC help. News releases trumpet each bust, and the state has sponsored 300 public workshops on cyber crime.
Van Hollen also has pushed local law enforcement leaders to join the unit as affiliates, creating a statewide net of cyber sleuths and easing the burden on his agents. Seventy-four agencies have joined. Hundreds haven’t.
When they plead that they lack resources, he has a ready answer: “I say what’s more important — these 10 speeders getting tickets or this kid not getting sexually molested?”
Van Hollen asked Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle for $732,000 in the 2009-2011 state budget to hire two more agents and three more analysts, despite the state’s $5.7 billion deficit. Doyle allocated funds for one agent and one analyst. The federal stimulus package could add money.
Analyst Matthews just wants help, saying: “If pedophiles in this state feel that the odds are in their favor when they’re browsing for and downloading child pornography, that they probably won’t get caught, right now, I’ll tell you that’s true.”
___
The van sat in the Country Kitchen parking lot.
The agents’ adrenaline surged. Paul2u’s action in simply pulling into the parking lot was enough for them to make an arrest. The sheriff’s deputies closed in and ordered the driver out.
Hoell and Szatkowski stepped into the wet, 35-degree night and started walking toward them.
Then Szatkowski stopped short.
He recognized Paul2u.
The cyber predator was 46-year-old Robert E. Thibault — Szatkowski’s children’s religion teacher. Szatkowski had seen him in church that morning.
Hoell found a bag of sex toys in the van. Thibault told Hoell later that he would have had sex with the boy if they liked each other, adding he’d had about 20 conversations with minor males online over the last couple years.
Later that night Szatkowski looked at the photograph on his printer. He thought about how Thibault had been at his daughter’s First Communion.
“It just reinforced … you don’t put faith in a person,” he said. “In my heart, I can forgive anyone for anything, including him. Forgiveness is huge if you’re going to be a good Catholic. (But) that feeling of betrayal will be there forever.”
A judge sentenced Thibault to 10 years in prison on conspiracy to sexually assault a child, but stayed the time and ordered him to spend a year in jail with work release. That was modified to electronic monitoring. The jail was too crowded.
Since the arrest in the Country Kitchen parking lot, Szatkowski has lured priests, teachers, police officers — even a mayor. In January, the agent posed online as a 14-year-old girl and allegedly engaged in a conversation with Racine Mayor Gary Becker. According to a criminal complaint, Becker showed up at a suburban Milwaukee mall hoping to meet the girl for sex. Becker, who has since resigned, faces eight felony counts. He pleaded not guilty and awaits trial.
“When you’re a child, you shouldn’t have to be exposed to this stuff,” Szatkowski said.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Eric Szatkowski is a Wisconsin Justice Department special agent, but on that Sunday afternoon he entered an online chat room as a 14-year-old boy.
He claimed he was into weightlifting, AC/DC and muscle magazines. Then he waited.
Within hours, screen name Paul2u sent a message: “Hi. u realy 14?”
Over the past decade, agents and computer experts have gone after hundreds of people like Paul2u who solicit sex from kids or trade child pornography online. Police efforts around the country were all the rage with the media in the early 2000s, reaching a crescendo with Dateline NBC’s “To Catch A Predator” series.
Despite the publicity then and now, the bad guys haven’t gone away. They’ve quietly multiplied. Trading child porn online and grooming underage targets in chat rooms has exploded nationwide. With arrests more than quadrupling in 10 years, Wisconsin’s agents and analysts feel overwhelmed.
“I don’t think we’ve made significant progress at all,” Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said. “Our community leaders don’t even know how bad the problem is. The general population has no idea.”
In the past year, Van Hollen has raised the profile of Wisconsin’s Internet Crimes Against Children, or ICAC, unit, recruited local police departments to help and asked for more state dollars to help agents like Szatkowski, who adopted the 14-year-old’s persona.
“If I’m too young that’s ok,” the agent wrote back to Paul2u that Sunday back in 2002, adding: “Lots of dudes call me jail bait.”
“Well, yeah, if you get caught,” Paul2u replied, “but if you’re willing its doable.”
The hook was set.
___
The Internet was just gaining traction when an online child porn arrest was made by Wisconsin’s Justice Department in 1995. The next year saw six arrests. The year after that, 13. By then agency officials realized what the future held, said Mike Myszewski, administrator of department’s Criminal Investigation unit.
Using $300,000 in federal seed money, he set up one of the first units to combat Internet crimes against children. Today about 60 such task forces exist nationwide.
Szatkowski, a homicide investigator with years of undercover experience, was an early volunteer for the group, which focused at first on “travelers,” people like Paul2u who solicit sex from children online and arrange meetings with them. The unit made 18 arrests the first year, 36 in 2000 and 24 in 2001.
The numbers from units across the country were so encouraging federal officials thought they could eradicate chat room solicitation within three years, Myszewski said.
Then computers and Internet connections got cheap. More people could afford to go online. The bad guys got smarter, too. They wanted to talk to the person on the other end of the modem and see photographs. “To Catch a Predator” only made them more cautious, Szatkowski said. Wisconsin arrests dropped, from 24 in 2001 to 17 in 2002 to 11 in 2003.
Meanwhile, online child porn became more sophisticated. New peer-to-peer file sharing software enabled porn purveyors to send photographs and videos directly to each other’s computers in seconds, anywhere in the world.
___
Szatkowski and Paul2u exchanged messages for an hour.
Paul2u asked Szatkowski about his sexual experience with men and said he’d love to see him more than once. At one point Paul2u asked Szatkowski if he was a cop. They agreed to exchange photos.
Szatkowski sent a photo of Racine County Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Prochaska when Prochaska was 13. Szatkowski typed that he could sneak out but didn’t want to spend all night with him. He had school in the morning.
Fine, Paul2u replied. They could “do it” in his van.
Paul2u asked Szatkowski to call him. Prochaska made the call and agreed to meet Paul2u in half an hour.
Szatkowski glanced at Paul2u’s photograph, hit print and rushed out of the office without taking a second look. Later, he wished he had.
___
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s cyber tip line took 85,301 reports of child porn and 8,787 reports of online enticement last year. Investigations of Internet crimes against children resulted in 3,000 arrests nationwide in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The statistics show how an entire generation has moved online, seeking reinforcement from others with the same abhorrent sexual tastes, said Michelle Collins, executive director of the missing children center’s exploited child division.
Most disturbing is the correlation between child porn and enticement, said Wisconsin forensic computer analyst Dave Matthews. Viewing leads to doing, he said.
“They’re grooming themselves,” Matthews said.
Wisconsin’s unit moved from busting travelers to taking down porn users. The state justice department began training every criminal agent in its Division of Criminal Investigation to help, Msyzewski said. Arrests have hovered around 100 annually since 2004.
___
Szatkowski, his partner, Mike Hoell, and Prochaska sat at a Country Kitchen in Racine, watching the clock as they waited for Paul2u. Prochaska, playing the role of the boy, wore a yellow jacket and backward baseball cap.
They talked about everything Paul2u had said to Szatkowski online and how they hoped he would park in front, where they’d see him. They kept looking around, making sure Paul2u hadn’t come in through a back door.
Around 10:45 p.m., a brown Ford van pulled into the parking lot and flashed its lights at Prochaska.
___
Ramping up the fight against child cyber crime comes with a price.
The Wisconsin task force’s five full-time agents and six full-time computer analysts are swamped, mentally and physically. They analyze hard drives, catalog tips, write search warrant affidavits and criminal complaints, break down doors, and interview children as young as 3.
On a recent winter morning, agent Jenniffer Price was working 43 cases, all stacked neatly on her Madison office desk.
“We simply don’t have enough cops on the street to do the work that needs to be done,” Price said. “We’ve got so many offenders out there. I just see the balloon getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”
The work takes its toll.
Szatkowski barred his children from sleepovers, instant messaging, social networking and online games when they were young.
Matthews, a unit analyst since 2005, specializes in tracking down porn users. In the last six months he’s identified about 50 leads for agents that have resulted in cases.
He said the Internet has become an adult bookstore that pushes sexual deviants to act on their desires for children. He copes by not socializing with other ICAC agents and keeping his imagination in check.
“Mainly you just shut down a part of your brain that makes you feel like crap,” Matthews said.
Analyst Chris Byars spends days scanning seized porn for clues. Last summer she sat outside her home in central Wisconsin, trying to watch people stroll by, and had to go inside.
“All of a sudden I’m wondering how many people in Lodi right now are assaulting or abusing their children,” she said. “I don’t think you can turn it off.”
Meanwhile, Van Hollen, the attorney general, has worked to draw attention to cyber crimes and get ICAC help. News releases trumpet each bust, and the state has sponsored 300 public workshops on cyber crime.
Van Hollen also has pushed local law enforcement leaders to join the unit as affiliates, creating a statewide net of cyber sleuths and easing the burden on his agents. Seventy-four agencies have joined. Hundreds haven’t.
When they plead that they lack resources, he has a ready answer: “I say what’s more important — these 10 speeders getting tickets or this kid not getting sexually molested?”
Van Hollen asked Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle for $732,000 in the 2009-2011 state budget to hire two more agents and three more analysts, despite the state’s $5.7 billion deficit. Doyle allocated funds for one agent and one analyst. The federal stimulus package could add money.
Analyst Matthews just wants help, saying: “If pedophiles in this state feel that the odds are in their favor when they’re browsing for and downloading child pornography, that they probably won’t get caught, right now, I’ll tell you that’s true.”
___
The van sat in the Country Kitchen parking lot.
The agents’ adrenaline surged. Paul2u’s action in simply pulling into the parking lot was enough for them to make an arrest. The sheriff’s deputies closed in and ordered the driver out.
Hoell and Szatkowski stepped into the wet, 35-degree night and started walking toward them.
Then Szatkowski stopped short.
He recognized Paul2u.
The cyber predator was 46-year-old Robert E. Thibault — Szatkowski’s children’s religion teacher. Szatkowski had seen him in church that morning.
Hoell found a bag of sex toys in the van. Thibault told Hoell later that he would have had sex with the boy if they liked each other, adding he’d had about 20 conversations with minor males online over the last couple years.
Later that night Szatkowski looked at the photograph on his printer. He thought about how Thibault had been at his daughter’s First Communion.
“It just reinforced … you don’t put faith in a person,” he said. “In my heart, I can forgive anyone for anything, including him. Forgiveness is huge if you’re going to be a good Catholic. (But) that feeling of betrayal will be there forever.”
A judge sentenced Thibault to 10 years in prison on conspiracy to sexually assault a child, but stayed the time and ordered him to spend a year in jail with work release. That was modified to electronic monitoring. The jail was too crowded.
Since the arrest in the Country Kitchen parking lot, Szatkowski has lured priests, teachers, police officers — even a mayor. In January, the agent posed online as a 14-year-old girl and allegedly engaged in a conversation with Racine Mayor Gary Becker. According to a criminal complaint, Becker showed up at a suburban Milwaukee mall hoping to meet the girl for sex. Becker, who has since resigned, faces eight felony counts. He pleaded not guilty and awaits trial.
“When you’re a child, you shouldn’t have to be exposed to this stuff,” Szatkowski said.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Convicted killer backs judge for Wis. high court
Date: 2/14/2009
By RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Unsolicited praise from a convicted cop killer isn’t the kind of endorsement that a judge with a tough law enforcement stance wants.
But that’s what Jefferson County Judge Randy Koschnick got from former client Ted Oswald, a man convicted of killing a police captain in 1994. The judge is now seeking a position on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
In a letter sent from prison to The Associated Press, Oswald said Koschnick, his former public defender, did “exceedingly productive and good work” on his case in 1994 and 1995.
“If Judge Koschnick is selected for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, his voluminous first-hand knowledge of defense cases and the personalities of accused criminals would bestow to that court a fairer, more effective and more trustworthy perspective … .” Oswald wrote. “I only observed his practice on one case, but I would be inclined to see it his way.”
Oswald is serving a life prison term for killing a Waukesha police captain after robbing a bank with his father. Oswald, then 18, and his father were pulled over after the robbery and opened fire on police with semiautomatic rifles. They also took a woman hostage and injured two other officers before they were arrested.
Koschnick was assigned to represent Oswald along with colleague Samuel Benedict. They argued that Oswald’s abusive father brainwashed him into participating in the crime spree.
Koschnick’s defense of Oswald and his 14 years as a public defender before serving as a judge since 1999 have become an issue in his race against Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson in the April 7 election.
Although Koschnick’s campaign has been endorsed by police chiefs, sheriffs and district attorneys, critics, in the past, have successfully argued that the work of public defenders undermines that of law enforcement. Another public defender-turned-judge, former Justice Louis Butler, was defeated in his re-election bid last year by critics who said his background indicated he was soft on crime.
Koschnick predicted his critics would exploit Oswald’s case but said he was proud of his work as a defense attorney. Still, he didn’t return the convicted killer’s praise.
“He is free to say whatever he wants, but his endorsement is no honor to me,” the judge said in a statement.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
By RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Unsolicited praise from a convicted cop killer isn’t the kind of endorsement that a judge with a tough law enforcement stance wants.
But that’s what Jefferson County Judge Randy Koschnick got from former client Ted Oswald, a man convicted of killing a police captain in 1994. The judge is now seeking a position on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
In a letter sent from prison to The Associated Press, Oswald said Koschnick, his former public defender, did “exceedingly productive and good work” on his case in 1994 and 1995.
“If Judge Koschnick is selected for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, his voluminous first-hand knowledge of defense cases and the personalities of accused criminals would bestow to that court a fairer, more effective and more trustworthy perspective … .” Oswald wrote. “I only observed his practice on one case, but I would be inclined to see it his way.”
Oswald is serving a life prison term for killing a Waukesha police captain after robbing a bank with his father. Oswald, then 18, and his father were pulled over after the robbery and opened fire on police with semiautomatic rifles. They also took a woman hostage and injured two other officers before they were arrested.
Koschnick was assigned to represent Oswald along with colleague Samuel Benedict. They argued that Oswald’s abusive father brainwashed him into participating in the crime spree.
Koschnick’s defense of Oswald and his 14 years as a public defender before serving as a judge since 1999 have become an issue in his race against Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson in the April 7 election.
Although Koschnick’s campaign has been endorsed by police chiefs, sheriffs and district attorneys, critics, in the past, have successfully argued that the work of public defenders undermines that of law enforcement. Another public defender-turned-judge, former Justice Louis Butler, was defeated in his re-election bid last year by critics who said his background indicated he was soft on crime.
Koschnick predicted his critics would exploit Oswald’s case but said he was proud of his work as a defense attorney. Still, he didn’t return the convicted killer’s praise.
“He is free to say whatever he wants, but his endorsement is no honor to me,” the judge said in a statement.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Ex-Wis. alderman gets 1 year for bribery, contempt
Date: 2/13/2009
By DINESH RAMDE
Associated Press Writer
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A former Milwaukee alderman who pleaded no contest to charges of trying to buy votes and contempt of court has been sentenced to a year in jail.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Richard Sankovitz on Friday ordered Michael McGee Jr. to serve the state sentence after he finishes a 6½-year term in federal prison.
The 39-year-old McGee was convicted last year on federal charges of extortion and taking bribes from business owners. Prosecutors had asked for 18 months in prison and up to one year in jail.
McGee maintained his innocence before the sentencing. He says he’s sure a jury would have acquitted him if he went to trial.
He didn’t say why he pleaded no contest in November.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
By DINESH RAMDE
Associated Press Writer
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A former Milwaukee alderman who pleaded no contest to charges of trying to buy votes and contempt of court has been sentenced to a year in jail.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Richard Sankovitz on Friday ordered Michael McGee Jr. to serve the state sentence after he finishes a 6½-year term in federal prison.
The 39-year-old McGee was convicted last year on federal charges of extortion and taking bribes from business owners. Prosecutors had asked for 18 months in prison and up to one year in jail.
McGee maintained his innocence before the sentencing. He says he’s sure a jury would have acquitted him if he went to trial.
He didn’t say why he pleaded no contest in November.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Federal judge strikes down Wis. markup gas law
Date: 2/13/2009
By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge has declared Wisconsin’s 70-year-old minimum markup on gas unconstitutional, saying it illegally restricts trade.
Rudolph T. Randa, chief judge of the Eastern District of Wisconsin, made the decision Wednesday in a lawsuit filed in 2008 by Flying J, a Utah company that runs pit stops in Black River Falls and Oak Creek.
A state law passed in 1939 prohibited retailers from selling products for less than they paid. Part of that law required gas stations to mark up gas either 6 percent over what they paid or 9 percent over the average wholesale price, whichever is higher.
The measure was meant to keep larger companies from selling gas for less than smaller competitors’ prices and driving them out of business. Violators faced stiff fines and lawsuits from competitors.
At least 10 states have laws that prevent gas stations from selling below cost, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. At least two states, Wisconsin and Minnesota, require a certain percentage increase.
Lotus Business Group, based in Kenosha, sued Flying J in 2007, saying the company did not mark up gas as required. A federal magistrate judge ruled the markup unconstitutional in October 2007, but state regulators continued to enforce it.
Flying J then filed a lawsuit against the state Justice and Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection departments in January 2008 to stop enforcement.
Randa on Wednesday found the Wisconsin law violated the Sherman Act, a federal statute that limits cartels and monopolies. The restrictions on monopolies wouldn’t apply to the state if it had a clear policy and a program to monitor gas prices, but it doesn’t, the judge said.
Spokesmen for the state departments said their attorneys were reviewing the decision.
State Justice Department spokesman Bill Cosh said the agency wouldn’t bring any enforcement actions while Randa’s order stands.
Matt Hauser, president of the Wisconsin Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, said he was disappointed with the ruling because it threatened more than 1,400 gas stations with independent owners in the state.
If those businesses go under, competition will be reduced and prices could climb, he said.
“We’re hoping for an immediate appeal … to make sure consumers are protected from a less competitive marketplace,” Hauser said.
But Flying J company attorney Jonathan Dibble said the ruling should increase competition and drive down gas prices.
“The citizens of Wisconsin have paid hundreds of millions of dollars more than they should have over the years,” he said. Randa had estimated the state’s markup law cost drivers about 30 cents on every gallon during the past two years, when gas prices rose to nearly $4 per gallon.
Gov. Jim Doyle also said the ruling would benefit customers.
Linda Casey, a spokeswoman for Speedway SuperAmerica that has 75 stores in Wisconsin, said other factors affect gas prices and that Randa’s decision wouldn’t necessarily mean lower prices at the pump.
But she said the ruling “encourages competition.”
“That’s a good thing,” she said.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge has declared Wisconsin’s 70-year-old minimum markup on gas unconstitutional, saying it illegally restricts trade.
Rudolph T. Randa, chief judge of the Eastern District of Wisconsin, made the decision Wednesday in a lawsuit filed in 2008 by Flying J, a Utah company that runs pit stops in Black River Falls and Oak Creek.
A state law passed in 1939 prohibited retailers from selling products for less than they paid. Part of that law required gas stations to mark up gas either 6 percent over what they paid or 9 percent over the average wholesale price, whichever is higher.
The measure was meant to keep larger companies from selling gas for less than smaller competitors’ prices and driving them out of business. Violators faced stiff fines and lawsuits from competitors.
At least 10 states have laws that prevent gas stations from selling below cost, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. At least two states, Wisconsin and Minnesota, require a certain percentage increase.
Lotus Business Group, based in Kenosha, sued Flying J in 2007, saying the company did not mark up gas as required. A federal magistrate judge ruled the markup unconstitutional in October 2007, but state regulators continued to enforce it.
Flying J then filed a lawsuit against the state Justice and Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection departments in January 2008 to stop enforcement.
Randa on Wednesday found the Wisconsin law violated the Sherman Act, a federal statute that limits cartels and monopolies. The restrictions on monopolies wouldn’t apply to the state if it had a clear policy and a program to monitor gas prices, but it doesn’t, the judge said.
Spokesmen for the state departments said their attorneys were reviewing the decision.
State Justice Department spokesman Bill Cosh said the agency wouldn’t bring any enforcement actions while Randa’s order stands.
Matt Hauser, president of the Wisconsin Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, said he was disappointed with the ruling because it threatened more than 1,400 gas stations with independent owners in the state.
If those businesses go under, competition will be reduced and prices could climb, he said.
“We’re hoping for an immediate appeal … to make sure consumers are protected from a less competitive marketplace,” Hauser said.
But Flying J company attorney Jonathan Dibble said the ruling should increase competition and drive down gas prices.
“The citizens of Wisconsin have paid hundreds of millions of dollars more than they should have over the years,” he said. Randa had estimated the state’s markup law cost drivers about 30 cents on every gallon during the past two years, when gas prices rose to nearly $4 per gallon.
Gov. Jim Doyle also said the ruling would benefit customers.
Linda Casey, a spokeswoman for Speedway SuperAmerica that has 75 stores in Wisconsin, said other factors affect gas prices and that Randa’s decision wouldn’t necessarily mean lower prices at the pump.
But she said the ruling “encourages competition.”
“That’s a good thing,” she said.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Former priest gets 25 years on sex charge with boy
Date: 2/11/2009
By DON BABWIN
Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) — A former Roman Catholic priest convicted of taking a boy on religious retreats to have sex with him was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in prison.
Donald McGuire, of Oak Lawn, displayed no emotion as U.S District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer imposed a 300-month sentence that likely means the 78-year-old former priest will die in prison.
Pallmeyer said McGuire used his stature, his international reputation that included being a spiritual adviser to Mother Teresa and the trust parents had in him that he would care for “the finest gifts God ever gave them: their children.”
She said the boys’ confidence, faith, innocence and sexual desire were destroyed.
“You robbed them of all these things,” she said after a hearing that included statements from victims, including McGuire’s godson.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Ruder told the judge that it was “a horrific and monstrous crime.”
McGuire was convicted in October of charges of traveling outside the United States and across state lines to have sex with a teenager between 2000 and 2003. The Vatican ordered McGuire out of the priesthood last year.
In 2006, McGuire was convicted in Wisconsin of child molestation and sentenced to seven years in prison. He has appealed that conviction.
McGuire also has been indicted in Arizona on child molestation charges and faces lawsuits on new child molestation accusations.
Victims and their parents testified before the sentencing Wednesday that they felt guilty for not coming forward sooner with their allegations.
“I apologize to the other victims,” said one man who told the judge he was abused by McGuire for six years beginning in the late 1970s. “I apologize that I didn’t come forward.”
Many of those who testified also asked McGuire to apologize to them, which Pallmeyer noted the former priest didn’t do.
McGuire has maintained his innocence throughout the trial. At the hearing, he told the judge he would continue to pray for everyone connected to the trial and spoke of being near the end of his life.
“I see that horizon, it’s heaven, where every tear will be wiped away,” he said.
McGuire would have to serve most of his sentence before he is eligible for release.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
By DON BABWIN
Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) — A former Roman Catholic priest convicted of taking a boy on religious retreats to have sex with him was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in prison.
Donald McGuire, of Oak Lawn, displayed no emotion as U.S District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer imposed a 300-month sentence that likely means the 78-year-old former priest will die in prison.
Pallmeyer said McGuire used his stature, his international reputation that included being a spiritual adviser to Mother Teresa and the trust parents had in him that he would care for “the finest gifts God ever gave them: their children.”
She said the boys’ confidence, faith, innocence and sexual desire were destroyed.
“You robbed them of all these things,” she said after a hearing that included statements from victims, including McGuire’s godson.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Ruder told the judge that it was “a horrific and monstrous crime.”
McGuire was convicted in October of charges of traveling outside the United States and across state lines to have sex with a teenager between 2000 and 2003. The Vatican ordered McGuire out of the priesthood last year.
In 2006, McGuire was convicted in Wisconsin of child molestation and sentenced to seven years in prison. He has appealed that conviction.
McGuire also has been indicted in Arizona on child molestation charges and faces lawsuits on new child molestation accusations.
Victims and their parents testified before the sentencing Wednesday that they felt guilty for not coming forward sooner with their allegations.
“I apologize to the other victims,” said one man who told the judge he was abused by McGuire for six years beginning in the late 1970s. “I apologize that I didn’t come forward.”
Many of those who testified also asked McGuire to apologize to them, which Pallmeyer noted the former priest didn’t do.
McGuire has maintained his innocence throughout the trial. At the hearing, he told the judge he would continue to pray for everyone connected to the trial and spoke of being near the end of his life.
“I see that horizon, it’s heaven, where every tear will be wiped away,” he said.
McGuire would have to serve most of his sentence before he is eligible for release.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
DNA match breaks open Wisconsin slaying from 1976
Date: 2/10/2009
By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press Writer
FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) — A DNA match has helped detectives arrest a man in the stabbing death of a 19-year-old woman more than three decades ago, apparently clearing a case that has haunted this central Wisconsin city for a generation.
Police arrested Thomas Niesen, 53, of Ashwaubenon, last week in the 1976 death of Kathleen Leichtman. Prosecutors said Monday they expect to formally charge him Tuesday morning.
Leichtman’s death was the only unsolved homicide in Fond du Lac, and the case dogged detectives and the victim’s relatives for years.
“This was their nightmare,” Fond du Lac Police Chief Tony Barthuly said at a press conference Monday.
Barthuly’s own uncle, Alexander Semenas, was district attorney when Leichtman was killed. “Last week was one of the happiest moments of my career,” he said. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell Kathleen’s family I hope this resolution allows you to sleep comfortable at night.”
Fond du Lac, a city of about 42,000 people, lies at the south end of Lake Winnebago about 70 miles from Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay, the state’s three largest cities.
Leichtman, who was from Milwaukee, came to Fond du Lac on July 14, 1976, to work as a go-go dancer at a nightclub called The Other Place. A motorist discovered her body in the road across from a golf course about 2 a.m. the next day. Someone had slit her throat and stabbed her multiple times.
Police put together sketches of two men who left the nightclub with Leichtman, but no arrests were ever made.
Detectives sent DNA evidence from Leichtman’s death to the state crime lab in 2001 but received no matches. The sample went into the national DNA database. There were no results for seven years.
“This is the one everybody looked at as the one that was going to get away,” said Capt. Michael Frank, the Fond du Lac Police Department’s detective supervisor.
Then, in October 2008, the lab matched the Leichtman sample to Niesen, who had to submit DNA after he was convicted of felony child abuse in Brown County earlier that year. Niesen gave his sample in August, Frank said.
The department assigned two detectives to work exclusively on the case. Frank estimated the agency has spent about 1,000 hours on the case since the DNA hit came back.
Detectives interviewed Niesen at his home Wednesday and took him into custody. He remains in the Fond du Lac County Jail, police said.
District Attorney Dan Kaminsky declined comment on the investigation before filing charges. He said only that investigators have a working theory about what happened to Leichtman and believe they have the right man.
Leichtman’s family issued a two-sentence statement through police, asking the media to leave them alone and thanking detectives for their work.
They said they “would like to express their special appreciation and gratitude to everyone working on this case and to their dedication.”
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press Writer
FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) — A DNA match has helped detectives arrest a man in the stabbing death of a 19-year-old woman more than three decades ago, apparently clearing a case that has haunted this central Wisconsin city for a generation.
Police arrested Thomas Niesen, 53, of Ashwaubenon, last week in the 1976 death of Kathleen Leichtman. Prosecutors said Monday they expect to formally charge him Tuesday morning.
Leichtman’s death was the only unsolved homicide in Fond du Lac, and the case dogged detectives and the victim’s relatives for years.
“This was their nightmare,” Fond du Lac Police Chief Tony Barthuly said at a press conference Monday.
Barthuly’s own uncle, Alexander Semenas, was district attorney when Leichtman was killed. “Last week was one of the happiest moments of my career,” he said. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell Kathleen’s family I hope this resolution allows you to sleep comfortable at night.”
Fond du Lac, a city of about 42,000 people, lies at the south end of Lake Winnebago about 70 miles from Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay, the state’s three largest cities.
Leichtman, who was from Milwaukee, came to Fond du Lac on July 14, 1976, to work as a go-go dancer at a nightclub called The Other Place. A motorist discovered her body in the road across from a golf course about 2 a.m. the next day. Someone had slit her throat and stabbed her multiple times.
Police put together sketches of two men who left the nightclub with Leichtman, but no arrests were ever made.
Detectives sent DNA evidence from Leichtman’s death to the state crime lab in 2001 but received no matches. The sample went into the national DNA database. There were no results for seven years.
“This is the one everybody looked at as the one that was going to get away,” said Capt. Michael Frank, the Fond du Lac Police Department’s detective supervisor.
Then, in October 2008, the lab matched the Leichtman sample to Niesen, who had to submit DNA after he was convicted of felony child abuse in Brown County earlier that year. Niesen gave his sample in August, Frank said.
The department assigned two detectives to work exclusively on the case. Frank estimated the agency has spent about 1,000 hours on the case since the DNA hit came back.
Detectives interviewed Niesen at his home Wednesday and took him into custody. He remains in the Fond du Lac County Jail, police said.
District Attorney Dan Kaminsky declined comment on the investigation before filing charges. He said only that investigators have a working theory about what happened to Leichtman and believe they have the right man.
Leichtman’s family issued a two-sentence statement through police, asking the media to leave them alone and thanking detectives for their work.
They said they “would like to express their special appreciation and gratitude to everyone working on this case and to their dedication.”
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Wis. religious leader: No contest in corpse case
Date: 2/5/2009
MAUSTON, Wis. (AP) — A religious leader pleaded no contest Thursday to charges that he stashed a rotting corpse for two months in a follower’s bathroom.
Alan Bushey was charged last year with hiding a corpse, causing mental harm to a child and theft. Investigators said the body of a 90-year-old member of his religious group was concealed at another group member’s home in a scheme to collect the dead woman’s Social Security checks.
Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth agreed to drop the mental harm and theft counts in exchange for Bushey’s plea, according to online court records.
Bushey, 58, of Necedah, faces up to 10 years in prison and $25,000 in fines. His sentencing is set for May 5.
His attorney, Thomas Steinman, didn’t immediately return a telephone message left at his office Thursday. Southworth’s office declined to comment.
Prosecutors accused Bushey and follower Tammy Lewis of leaving 90-year-old Magdeline Middlesworth’s body on a toilet in Lewis’ home after she died there in March.
A criminal complaint said Bushey led the Order of the Divine Will sect and told Lewis that God would revive Middlesworth. The decaying body was found in May after Middlesworth’s family expressed concern.
Lewis pleaded no contest in November to obstructing a police officer and was fined $350.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
MAUSTON, Wis. (AP) — A religious leader pleaded no contest Thursday to charges that he stashed a rotting corpse for two months in a follower’s bathroom.
Alan Bushey was charged last year with hiding a corpse, causing mental harm to a child and theft. Investigators said the body of a 90-year-old member of his religious group was concealed at another group member’s home in a scheme to collect the dead woman’s Social Security checks.
Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth agreed to drop the mental harm and theft counts in exchange for Bushey’s plea, according to online court records.
Bushey, 58, of Necedah, faces up to 10 years in prison and $25,000 in fines. His sentencing is set for May 5.
His attorney, Thomas Steinman, didn’t immediately return a telephone message left at his office Thursday. Southworth’s office declined to comment.
Prosecutors accused Bushey and follower Tammy Lewis of leaving 90-year-old Magdeline Middlesworth’s body on a toilet in Lewis’ home after she died there in March.
A criminal complaint said Bushey led the Order of the Divine Will sect and told Lewis that God would revive Middlesworth. The decaying body was found in May after Middlesworth’s family expressed concern.
Lewis pleaded no contest in November to obstructing a police officer and was fined $350.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Cheerleading is a contact sport, Wis. court rules
Date: 1/27/2009
By RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — High school cheerleading is a contact sport and therefore its participants cannot be sued for accidentally causing injuries, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a case being closely watched in the cheerleading world.
The court ruled that a former high school cheerleader cannot sue a teammate who failed to stop her fall while she was practicing a stunt. The court also said the injured cheerleader cannot sue her school district.
The National Cheer Safety Foundation said the decision is the first of its kind in the nation.
At issue in the case was whether cheerleaders qualify for immunity under a Wisconsin law that prevents participants in contact sports from suing each other for unintentional injuries.
It does not spell out which sports are contact sports. The District 4 Court of Appeals ruled last year cheerleading doesn’t qualify because there’s no contact between opposing teams.
But all seven members of the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to overturn that decision. In the opinion, Justice Annette Ziegler said cheerleading involves “a significant amount of physical contact between the cheerleaders.” As an example, she cited stunts in which cheerleaders are tossed in the air.
The lawsuit was brought by Brittany Noffke, who was a varsity cheerleader at Holmen High School in western Wisconsin. Practicing a stunt in 2004, Noffke fell backward off the shoulders of another cheerleader and suffered a serious head injury.
She sued a 16-year-old male teammate who was supposed to be her spotter but failed to catch her; the school district; and the district’s insurer.
Ziegler rejected Noffke’s argument that “contact sports” should mean only aggressive sports such as football and hockey. She wrote they should include any sport that that includes “physical contact between persons.”
The decision means cheerleaders can be sued only for acting recklessly. The court said Noffke’s teammate only made a mistake or showed a lack of skill. As for the school district, Ziegler said it cannot be sued for the coach’s behavior under a Wisconsin law that shields government agencies from lawsuits for the actions of employees.
Many observers had warned that families of cheerleaders would be forced to take out big insurance policies if the lower court decision stood.
Because of the increasingly difficult stunts, injuries among high school cheerleaders are a problem. Researchers at the University of North Carolina have found that two-thirds of the roughly 100 cases of “catastrophic” sports injuries among high school girls since 1982 have involved cheerleading.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
By RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — High school cheerleading is a contact sport and therefore its participants cannot be sued for accidentally causing injuries, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a case being closely watched in the cheerleading world.
The court ruled that a former high school cheerleader cannot sue a teammate who failed to stop her fall while she was practicing a stunt. The court also said the injured cheerleader cannot sue her school district.
The National Cheer Safety Foundation said the decision is the first of its kind in the nation.
At issue in the case was whether cheerleaders qualify for immunity under a Wisconsin law that prevents participants in contact sports from suing each other for unintentional injuries.
It does not spell out which sports are contact sports. The District 4 Court of Appeals ruled last year cheerleading doesn’t qualify because there’s no contact between opposing teams.
But all seven members of the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to overturn that decision. In the opinion, Justice Annette Ziegler said cheerleading involves “a significant amount of physical contact between the cheerleaders.” As an example, she cited stunts in which cheerleaders are tossed in the air.
The lawsuit was brought by Brittany Noffke, who was a varsity cheerleader at Holmen High School in western Wisconsin. Practicing a stunt in 2004, Noffke fell backward off the shoulders of another cheerleader and suffered a serious head injury.
She sued a 16-year-old male teammate who was supposed to be her spotter but failed to catch her; the school district; and the district’s insurer.
Ziegler rejected Noffke’s argument that “contact sports” should mean only aggressive sports such as football and hockey. She wrote they should include any sport that that includes “physical contact between persons.”
The decision means cheerleaders can be sued only for acting recklessly. The court said Noffke’s teammate only made a mistake or showed a lack of skill. As for the school district, Ziegler said it cannot be sued for the coach’s behavior under a Wisconsin law that shields government agencies from lawsuits for the actions of employees.
Many observers had warned that families of cheerleaders would be forced to take out big insurance policies if the lower court decision stood.
Because of the increasingly difficult stunts, injuries among high school cheerleaders are a problem. Researchers at the University of North Carolina have found that two-thirds of the roughly 100 cases of “catastrophic” sports injuries among high school girls since 1982 have involved cheerleading.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Litigant rapper gets poetic justice in Wis. court
Date: 1/24/2009
By RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Justice might be blind, but apparently it likes good rhythm.
A Wisconsin appellate court ruled in favor of a trombone player who filed his legal brief partially written in the form of a rap to argue he shouldn’t have to pay $3,750 in fees.
Gregory Royal, 47, is not an attorney but represented himself in a dispute with La Crosse County officials stemming from his divorce. He filed a federal lawsuit against county officials who recommended their two children spend most of their time with his ex-wife, but the case was thrown out because the federal courts do not intervene in such domestic disputes.
A county lawyer then asked a circuit court judge to order Royal to pay fees for bringing the case, which the judge later found frivolous.
But Royal, who lived in Wisconsin and now resides in Washington, said he wanted to convince the appeals court in a creative way that he was being treated unfairly.
“Imagine a real attorney who can actually capitalize and perfect that expression and throw some heavy stuff in there,” he said. “It’s like Einstein’s theory of relativity. It’s so short but so perfect there’s nothing you can say about it.”
Among several lines of lyrics in the six-page brief, Royal wrote: “A domestic relations exception, I was supposed to know. Appellee would know too, so why did he spend so much doe?”
The District 4 Court of Appeals ruled Jan. 13 that the judge did not have the authority to order Royal to pay fees, thereby allowing Royal to now seek costs from the lawyer who brought the lawsuit.
Royal said he has already asked for $800.
The court did not mention Royal’s lyrics in its decision but he said he believed they helped him win.
He said he may repeat the technique in another lawsuit, which claims a Canadian rock band improperly interfered with a contract to air a television show that his employer helped produce on the Oxygen cable network.
“I’m thinking about a rap scenario there,” he said.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
By RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Justice might be blind, but apparently it likes good rhythm.
A Wisconsin appellate court ruled in favor of a trombone player who filed his legal brief partially written in the form of a rap to argue he shouldn’t have to pay $3,750 in fees.
Gregory Royal, 47, is not an attorney but represented himself in a dispute with La Crosse County officials stemming from his divorce. He filed a federal lawsuit against county officials who recommended their two children spend most of their time with his ex-wife, but the case was thrown out because the federal courts do not intervene in such domestic disputes.
A county lawyer then asked a circuit court judge to order Royal to pay fees for bringing the case, which the judge later found frivolous.
But Royal, who lived in Wisconsin and now resides in Washington, said he wanted to convince the appeals court in a creative way that he was being treated unfairly.
“Imagine a real attorney who can actually capitalize and perfect that expression and throw some heavy stuff in there,” he said. “It’s like Einstein’s theory of relativity. It’s so short but so perfect there’s nothing you can say about it.”
Among several lines of lyrics in the six-page brief, Royal wrote: “A domestic relations exception, I was supposed to know. Appellee would know too, so why did he spend so much doe?”
The District 4 Court of Appeals ruled Jan. 13 that the judge did not have the authority to order Royal to pay fees, thereby allowing Royal to now seek costs from the lawyer who brought the lawsuit.
Royal said he has already asked for $800.
The court did not mention Royal’s lyrics in its decision but he said he believed they helped him win.
He said he may repeat the technique in another lawsuit, which claims a Canadian rock band improperly interfered with a contract to air a television show that his employer helped produce on the Oxygen cable network.
“I’m thinking about a rap scenario there,” he said.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.