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Judge rules misconduct case may proceed After hearing half a dozen witnesses say they routinely used their state jobs to do campaign work - and often took steps to cover it up - Dane County Circuit Judge Daniel Moeser ruled Wednesday there was enough evidence to proceed with a misconduct trial against two top Assembly members and a former employee.
Moeser ruled that the case against former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, Majority Leader Steve Foti and former Foti aide Sherry Schultz could continue. However, he indicated that an appeal planned by the defense seeking intervention by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals could affect the progress of the case. Defense attorneys for Jensen and Foti said they were optimistic the appeals court would intervene.
Wednesday marked the second day of the preliminary hearing held to determine whether Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard had enough evidence to show that Jensen, Foti and Schultz should be tried on felony misconduct and other charges. Moeser ruled that there was sufficient evidence.
"The parties knew what they were doing was wrong and there was an attempt to cover it up," the judge said, adding that the conduct represented a "systematic use of state resources and time" to benefit Republican candidates.
Regarding the felony charges against Jensen, Foti and Schultz for allegedly misusing Schultz's $65,000-a-year state position to raise money for candidates, Moeser said, "I don't view the charges here to be in the gray area. I don't think hiring a state employee (Schultz) to basically do fund raising is a gray area."
Wednesday's hearing included testimony from Carrie Hoeper Richard, who said Jensen, the Assembly's former top leader, hired her in 1997 as a fund-raiser for his private campaign committee, Taxpayers for Jensen. On Tuesday, former Jensen aide Leigh Himebauch Searl testified that she also did fund raising for Jensen from an office at the Republican Party of Wisconsin during 2000.
Richard said Jensen's goal in hiring her was to "raise money . Richard testified that she knew it was illegal.
"It was a general assumption and knowledge among everyone (in Jensen's office) that this was improper," Richard said, adding that everyone participated to some extent in Jensen's re-election efforts. "So we discussed things like making sure no campaign material was left out. We tried to cover up the activity we were participating in."
Former Foti aide Linda Hanson testified that from the moment Schultz was hired in 1998, her role was "fund raising and candidate recruitment." Hanson said she objected to Schultz doing such activities in Foti's Capitol office, so Foti moved Schultz to the Assembly Republican Caucus office outside of the Capitol.
Schultz attorney Stephen Morgan argued that Schultz was merely doing what her bosses told her to do.
"So her supervisors and everyone supervising those around her were all allowing people to perform campaign activity?" Morgan asked former ARC director Jason Kratochwill. "Yes," Kratochwill replied.
One of the three felony counts against Jensen alleges that he hired former caucus directors Kratochwill and Ray Carey specifically for campaign work. Both testified that recruiting candidates and running the campaigns of Republican Assembly candidates were key parts of their jobs as heads of the Assembly Republican Caucus.
So pervasive was the campaign culture at the ARC that former graphic artist Lee Riedesel said he never considered that his work on campaign literature on state time with his state computer improper until the Wisconsin State Journal began investigating it in the fall of 2000. It was his office mate, Schultz, who suggested that such activity could be illegal, Riedesel testified.
"Her (Schultz's) statement was that her work would get her in more trouble than ours," Riedesel said. "It was something to the effect that we could all go to jail, but that her work was more punishable."
Throughout the two days, defense attorneys argued that ensuring the election of fellow Republicans was one of the duties of Jensen and Foti as legislative leaders and that Schultz's alleged fund raising was a key part of that effort.
But Moeser rejected those arguments, saying, "Nowhere can I find or conclude that it's a duty for a legislator to get re-elected." |
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Copyright
© 2002 Wisconsin State Journal
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