From: To: Subject: Date: Timothy Zeglin Governor Scott Walker Trempealeau County District Attorney"s Office Concerns Thursday, October 05, 2017 3:30:54 PM <APP>CUSTOM <FIRST>Timothy</FIRST> <LAST>Zeglin</LAST> <ADDR1>W29086 State Rd. 121</ADDR1> <CITY>Independence</CITY> <STATE>WI</STATE> <ZIP>54747</ZIP> <PHONE> </PHONE> <EMAIL>tmzeglin@triwest net</email> <MSG>Subject: Trempealeau County District Attorney's Office Concerns Issue: General Dear Governor Walker: I am submitting this information on behalf of the Trempealeau County Executive/Finance Committee. Recent actions by Trempealeau County District Attorney Taavi McMahon have caused considerable concern. Since DA McMahon is an elected official, we are reaching out to the Governor s Office for assistance and/or guidance. As you are aware, the District Attorney from Jackson County, Gerald Fox, recently passed away. The day prior to Gerald s funeral, it came to the County s attention that DA McMahon planned to close his office for Gerald s funeral and require his staff to attend the funeral. Trempealeau County Corporation Counsel had a telephone conversation with DA McMahon indicating that he could not close his office or require his staff to attend the funeral. DA McMahon advised Corporation Counsel that he was going to do those things despite the conversation. On the day of Mr. Fox s funeral, September 15, 2017, DA McMahon followed through with his decision to close his office and require that his office staff, who are County employees, to attend the funeral. The staff in his office advised DA McMahon that they were not planning to attend the funeral and would remain at the office and perform their work. DA McMahon then advised his staff that it was not an option for them to remain in the office and work. He was closing the office and locking the door and no one was allowed to remain in the office. Again, staff indicated that they were not planning to go to the funeral and wanted to stay and work. DA McMahon became increasingly more agitated and gave options to either attend the funeral or face suspension. At one point, DA McMahon stated that they could work from home, however, Trempealeau County does not have a work from home policy for County employees. In addition, the staff cannot complete their work from home considering the nature of their work. They need to physically be present in the DA s office to perform their work. One of the office staff agreed to go to the funeral as she was afraid she would lose her job if she did not go. One other office staff member, the office manager/paralegal in the office, continued to refuse to go to the funeral. DA McMahon became increasingly agitated and the employee went to Human Resources for assistance with the situation. The Human Resources Director came to the DA s office and witnessed much of what occurred. Because of the high tension in the situation and the threat of suspension, the Human Resources Director suggested that the employee leave the office until things cooled down. DA McMahon ultimately suspended this employee, revoked her access to the State computer system so she could not perform any work and then had the locks changed on the office doors so that no one could enter the office while it was closed on the day of the funeral. Due to the situation, Human Resources advised the suspended employee to remain at home on administrative paid leave until we could arrange a meeting with DA McMahon to discuss the matter and work out a resolution. The County had, and continues to have, significant concerns regarding the instability of DA McMahon based on his actions as well as retaliatory actions being taken by DA McMahon against the office employee. To date, DA McMahon has had limited contact with anyone regarding this matter. He continues to claim that the office employee abandoned her job when that clearly is not the case. Attempts have been made to set up a meeting with DA McMahon, the office employee and Board members to discuss and resolve this matter, however, DA McMahon
has failed to attend any meeting or reschedule any meeting to resolve this matter. In the meantime, his office continues to struggle because they are short staffed. The County does not feel comfortable having the employee return to work without meeting with DA McMahon first as we feel that it is a hostile work environment and we feel that this employee would be retaliated against based on what has transpired over the past few weeks. Since this situation has occurred, more information has come to light regarding DA McMahon. Based on information that the Committee has learned, we do not believe that DA McMahon is adequately performing the duties of the DA s office as he is required to do. He is rarely in his office performing functions of the DA. His staff and Assistant DA are left to make sure that the office operates and cases are prosecuted. It is our understanding that law enforcement in Trempealeau County have little confidence in his abilities as DA. Despite DA McMahon rarely being in the office, he has recently accepted 40 cases from Jackson County to prosecute due to the passing of Gerald Fox. While this is admirable, DA McMahon is not prosecuting these cases, he is leaving it up to his staff to handle these matters despite their enormous workload. In addition, DA McMahon took on the prosecution of a case in Bayfield, Wisconsin. He has used Trempealeau County employees to assist with the prosecution which takes them away from their work in Trempealeau County. While we understand and agree that assistance between counties is necessary under certain circumstances, it does seem peculiar that DA McMahon would agree to prosecute a case so far away from Trempealeau County particularly when utilizing County resources. Another matter that has come to the Committee s attention since this incident is DA McMahon using County resources to purchase a laptop computer. We have confirmed that he purchased a laptop with County resources and our understanding is that he uses this laptop for significant personal use despite containing private and sensitive information, including information protected by HIPAA. Again, this is an ongoing investigation into the matter. Again, the Executive Finance Committee is contacting you as we believe that DA McMahon is not performing the duties of DA as he was elected to do. We believe that he is derelict in his duties and, since he is an elected official, we are reaching out to the Governor s office for some assistance and guidance on the matter. Sincerely, Trempealeau County Executive/Finance Committee Timothy Zeglin: Dick Miller: John Aasen: Sally Miller: Douglas Winters: View at: https://walker.wi.gov/node/3043/submission/15745</msg> </APP>
From: To: Subject: Date: Dick Miller Governor Scott Walker Trempealeau County District Attorney"s Office Concerns Thursday, December 14, 2017 2:06:02 PM <APP>CUSTOM <FIRST>Dick</FIRST> <LAST>Miller</LAST> <ADDR1>36245 Main Street</ADDR1> <ADDR2>P.O. Box 67</ADDR2> <CITY>Whitehall</CITY> <STATE>WI</STATE> <ZIP>54773</ZIP> <PHONE> </PHONE> <EMAIL>dickm@tremplocounty.com</EMAIL> <MSG>Subject: Trempealeau County District Attorney's Office Concerns Issue: General Dear Governor Walker: The Trempealeau County Board of Supervisors is following up on its previous letter to you from October 2017 regarding the Trempealeau County District Attorney, Taavi McMahon. Additional information has come to light regarding DA McMahon that we want to bring to your attention. As set forth in more detail below, based on this additional information, along with the information in our original letter, the Trempealeau County Board of Supervisors is requesting that DA McMahon be suspended immediately from his position as Trempealeau County District Attorney and an investigation be initiated immediately into DA McMahon s actions here in Trempealeau County. These requests are based on the following: According to Wisconsin Statute 17.11(1), if the Governor is credibly informed that any district attorney or sheriff is guilty of any offense against the laws of this state, the Governor shall, in the case of a felony, and may, in the case of a misdemeanor, suspend the district attorney or sheriff from office until the charge shall be investigated and finally determined. On or about October 2, 2017, DA McMahon submitted a document to the Honorable Rian Radtke requesting the appointment of a special prosecutor because the District Attorney is unable to attend to duties due to a health issue or has a mental incapacity that impairs his ability to perform duties. This request was contained on a form provided by the State of Wisconsin and was made pursuant to Wis. Stat. 978.045. The request submitted by DA McMahon to Judge Radtke affirmatively stated, by DA McMahon, that on October 2, 2017, DA McMahon submitted an affidavit to the Department of Administration ( DOA ) attesting that one or more of the following conditions exist for appointment of a special prosecutor, namely the inability to perform his duties. This request was signed by DA McMahon and submitted to the Court to be acted upon by Judge Radtke. We have been able to confirm, from DA McMahon himself, that DA McMahon never submitted the affidavit to the DOA as he represented to Judge Radtke. Wisconsin Statute 946.65 states that whoever for a consideration knowingly gives false information to any officer of any court with intent to influence the officer in the performance of official functions is guilty of a Class I felony. We believe that DA McMahon violated this statute when he knowingly gave false information to Judge Radtke with the intent to influence Judge Radtke in the performance of his official functions (i.e. the appointment of a special prosecutor). Judge Radtke did, in fact, sign the order appointing a special prosecutor based on DA McMahon s representations in the request. The request and order appointing a special prosecutor were filed with the Clerk of Court s office, however, the special prosecutor never acted pursuant to the order appointing him because the DOA did not agree to pay for the special prosecutor since the proper procedure was never followed by DA McMahon (i.e. the submission of the affidavit).
Furthermore, lawyers are bound by a code of ethics. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has set forth rules governing the conduct of attorneys. SCR 20:3.3 addresses an attorney s candor toward a tribunal. This rule states that a lawyer shall not knowingly: 1) make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer. We believe that DA McMahon has violated this crucial ethics rule by providing false information to Judge Radtke for the Court to consider when submitting the request for a special prosecutor. Due to this serious ethics violation, it is the Board s intent to file an ethics complaint with the Office of Lawyer Regulation regarding this matter. The Board believes that this action by DA McMahon demonstrates a willful disregard for the very laws that DA McMahon has sworn to uphold. This action also calls into question the integrity of DA McMahon and the Trempealeau County District Attorney s office. These kinds of actions are not only unlawful but they are harmful to the residents of Trempealeau County. If the residents of Trempealeau County cannot trust that their elected District Attorney will uphold the law, victims will be less likely to report crimes and perpetrators will feel more empowered to commit crimes. The Trempealeau County residents deserve more protection from their elected official than is currently being offered. In addition, other events have occurred since our last letter that further calls into question the integrity of DA McMahon and the way that he operates the district attorney s office. For example, for the past several months, virtually all cases that were filed with the Circuit Court were filed by Assistant District Attorney John Sacia. This occurred in large part because DA McMahon is rarely in the office to assist in the prosecution of cases. This resulted in an unusually large number of cases being assigned to ADA Sacia. After receiving an open records request from the media asking for certain prosecutorial information, DA McMahon began changing, in the computer system, many cases that were assigned and being handled by ADA Sacia to himself in an effort to show that he is adequately discharging the duties of the district attorney s office. During the process of switching the cases over to himself, DA McMahon sent ADA Sacia to work in the Monroe County District Attorney s office for two (2) weeks despite no official request from the Monroe County District Attorney s office for assistance. Another concern involves DA McMahon s failure to prosecute various cases in Trempealeau County. Recently, local law enforcement publicly voiced concerns, as stated in a local newspaper article, related to DA McMahon s handling of various cases in our County. It is clear, based on the comments of the local law enforcement agencies, that they have lost confidence in DA McMahon s ability to effectively discharge the duties of the Trempealeau District Attorney s office. This certainly calls into question the integrity of the Trempealeau County District Attorney s office which will impact criminal prosecutions going forward. All of the information in this letter has the Trempealeau County Board even more concerned with the actions, or lack thereof, of DA McMahon. It is based on this information that the Trempealeau County Board of Supervisors unanimously requests that you immediately suspend DA McMahon from his duties as Trempealeau County District Attorney and initiate an investigation into DA McMahon s actions. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Sincerely, Dick Miller Trempealeau County Board Chair on behalf of the Trempealeau County Board of Supervisors View at: https://walker.wi.gov/node/3043/submission/17717</msg> </APP>
From: To: Cc: Subject: Date: Ignatowski, Katie E - GOV dickm@tremplocounty.com Colvin, Alan R - GOV; Tripoli, John - GOV RE: Trempealeau County District Attorney"s Office Concerns Monday, December 18, 2017 3:47:00 PM Good Afternoon Dick, The below email has been directed to me. I will be in touch. Feel free to call me at the number listed below if you would like to discuss in the meantime. Thank you, Katie Ignatowski Chief Legal Counsel Office of Governor Scott Walker (608) 266-1212 Katie.Ignatowski@wisconsin.gov -----Original Message----- From: Governor Scott Walker Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2017 3:28 PM To: Ignatowski, Katie E - GOV <Katie.Ignatowski@wisconsin.gov>; Tripoli, John - GOV <John.Tripoli@wisconsin.gov> Subject: FW: Trempealeau County District Attorney's Office Concerns -----Original Message----- From: Dick Miller [mailto:dickm@tremplocounty.com] Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2017 2:06 PM To: Governor Scott Walker <GOVGeneral@wisconsin.gov> Subject: Trempealeau County District Attorney's Office Concerns <APP>CUSTOM <FIRST>Dick</FIRST> <LAST>Miller</LAST> <ADDR1>36245 Main Street</ADDR1> <ADDR2>P.O. Box 67</ADDR2> <CITY>Whitehall</CITY> <STATE>WI</STATE> <ZIP>54773</ZIP> <PHONE> </PHONE> <EMAIL>dickm@tremplocounty.com</EMAIL> <MSG>Subject: Trempealeau County District Attorney's Office Concerns Issue: General Dear Governor Walker:
The Trempealeau County Board of Supervisors is following up on its previous letter to you from October 2017 regarding the Trempealeau County District Attorney, Taavi McMahon. Additional information has come to light regarding DA McMahon that we want to bring to your attention. As set forth in more detail below, based on this additional information, along with the information in our original letter, the Trempealeau County Board of Supervisors is requesting that DA McMahon be suspended immediately from his position as Trempealeau County District Attorney and an investigation be initiated immediately into DA McMahon s actions here in Trempealeau County. These requests are based on the following: According to Wisconsin Statute 17.11(1), if the Governor is credibly informed that any district attorney or sheriff is guilty of any offense against the laws of this state, the Governor shall, in the case of a felony, and may, in the case of a misdemeanor, suspend the district attorney or sheriff from office until the charge shall be investigated and finally determined. On or about October 2, 2017, DA McMahon submitted a document to the Honorable Rian Radtke requesting the appointment of a special prosecutor because the District Attorney is unable to attend to duties due to a health issue or has a mental incapacity that impairs his ability to perform duties. This request was contained on a form provided by the State of Wisconsin and was made pursuant to Wis. Stat. 978.045. The request submitted by DA McMahon to Judge Radtke affirmatively stated, by DA McMahon, that on October 2, 2017, DA McMahon submitted an affidavit to the Department of Administration ( DOA ) attesting that one or more of the following conditions exist for appointment of a special prosecutor, namely the inability to perform his duties. This request was signed by DA McMahon and submitted to the Court to be acted upon by Judge Radtke. We have been able to confirm, from DA McMahon himself, that DA McMahon never submitted the affidavit to the DOA as he represented to Judge Radtke. Wisconsin Statute 946.65 states that whoever for a consideration knowingly gives false information to any officer of any court with intent to influence the officer in the performance of official functions is guilty of a Class I felony. We believe that DA McMahon violated this statute when he knowingly gave false information to Judge Radtke with the intent to influence Judge Radtke in the performance of his official functions (i.e. the appointment of a special prosecutor). Judge Radtke did, in fact, sign the order appointing a special prosecutor based on DA McMahon s representations in the request. The request and order appointing a special prosecutor were filed with the Clerk of Court s office, however, the special prosecutor never acted pursuant to the order appointing him because the DOA did not agree to pay for the special prosecutor since the proper procedure was never followed by DA McMahon (i.e. the submission of the affidavit). Furthermore, lawyers are bound by a code of ethics. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has set forth rules governing the conduct of attorneys. SCR 20:3.3 addresses an attorney s candor toward a tribunal. This rule states that a lawyer shall not knowingly: 1) make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer. We believe that DA McMahon has violated this crucial ethics rule by providing false information to Judge Radtke for the Court to consider when submitting the request for a special prosecutor. Due to this serious ethics violation, it is the Board s intent to file an ethics complaint with the Office of Lawyer Regulation regarding this matter. The Board believes that this action by DA McMahon demonstrates a willful disregard for the very laws that DA McMahon has sworn to uphold. This action also calls into question the integrity of DA McMahon and the Trempealeau County District Attorney s office. These kinds of actions are not only unlawful but they are harmful to the residents of Trempealeau County. If the residents of Trempealeau County cannot trust that their elected District Attorney will uphold the law, victims will be less likely to report crimes and perpetrators will feel more empowered to commit crimes. The Trempealeau County residents deserve more protection from their elected official than is currently being offered. In addition, other events have occurred since our last letter that further calls into question the integrity of DA McMahon and the way that he operates the district attorney s office. For example, for the past several months, virtually all cases that were filed with the Circuit Court were filed by Assistant District Attorney John Sacia. This occurred in large part because DA McMahon is rarely in the office to assist in the prosecution of cases. This resulted in an unusually large number of cases being assigned to ADA Sacia. After receiving an open records request from the media asking for certain prosecutorial information, DA
McMahon began changing, in the computer system, many cases that were assigned and being handled by ADA Sacia to himself in an effort to show that he is adequately discharging the duties of the district attorney s office. During the process of switching the cases over to himself, DA McMahon sent ADA Sacia to work in the Monroe County District Attorney s office for two (2) weeks despite no official request from the Monroe County District Attorney s office for assistance. Another concern involves DA McMahon s failure to prosecute various cases in Trempealeau County. Recently, local law enforcement publicly voiced concerns, as stated in a local newspaper article, related to DA McMahon s handling of various cases in our County. It is clear, based on the comments of the local law enforcement agencies, that they have lost confidence in DA McMahon s ability to effectively discharge the duties of the Trempealeau District Attorney s office. This certainly calls into question the integrity of the Trempealeau County District Attorney s office which will impact criminal prosecutions going forward. All of the information in this letter has the Trempealeau County Board even more concerned with the actions, or lack thereof, of DA McMahon. It is based on this information that the Trempealeau County Board of Supervisors unanimously requests that you immediately suspend DA McMahon from his duties as Trempealeau County District Attorney and initiate an investigation into DA McMahon s actions. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Sincerely, Dick Miller Trempealeau County Board Chair on behalf of the Trempealeau County Board of Supervisors View at: https://walker.wi.gov/node/3043/submission/17717</msg> </APP>