Daniel Bice No Quarter SHARE About John Doe Separate but related criminal investigations initiated by Milwaukee County prosecutors have examined events and activities during Scott Walker's time as Milwaukee County executive and as governor. Prosecutors have conducted the probes under the state's "John Doe" statutes that grant extraordinary powers to investigators to compel testimony and maintain secrecy. The first John Doe investigation, begun in 2010, led to convictions of six Walker aides, associates or appointees on charges ranging from theft from a veteran's group to misconduct in office. The second Doe probe, launched in 2012, looked into coordination between conservative political organizations and Walker and other candidates during recall elections. The second probe was halted in May 2014 by a federal judge who agreed that the investigation denied one of the conservative groups' its free-speech rights. No charges have been filed in the second investigation. Walker has denied wrongdoing. See full coverage in John Doe special section

The allegations are explosive.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm has used the power of his office to conduct two secret investigations of Gov. Scott Walker because Chisholm's wife is a teachers union shop steward bitterly opposed to Walker's anti-union policies. Right-wing talk radio quickly jumped on the story and ran with it for several days this week.

The source for reporter Stuart Taylor Jr.'slengthy article in Legal Newsline: a "longtime Chisholm subordinate" who is now a "former staff prosecutor in Chisholm's office."

Only those descriptions are not accurate. Not even close.

No Quarter has confirmed that the source making the allegations is a figure well-known in Milwaukee's legal community — but not for his prosecutorial record.

Michael W. Lutz, 44, is a former Milwaukee cop involved in several high-profile incidents during his 17 years on the force who receives taxpayer-funded duty disability pay for post-traumatic stress disorder. He got his law license less than four years ago and is now a criminal defense attorney.

But here is the shocker: Lutz issued a death threat, apparently during a drunken rage, against the prosecutor and his family last year — a charge not in dispute, though it was never prosecuted.

On Thursday, Lutz dodged questions as to whether he was the anonymous source making the bold claims. He said by email that he wished "to stay out of this firestorm," even if he helped create it.

Later, at his house, Lutz said he couldn't talk because Chisholm would "destroy" him. Asked if he was denying that he talked with Taylor, Lutz said, "No, I didn't say that."

Taylor declined to identify his source "unless and until he releases me from my promise of confidentiality." Late Friday, Richard Miniter, CEO of American Media Institute — which commissioned the story — acknowledged that Lutz was the anonymous source.

Reached Thursday, Chisholm said he was surprised that Lutz would make the allegations about the Milwaukee County district attorney's office.

That's because, Chisholm said, Lutz was an unpaid special prosecutor for 51/2 months in the county office in 2011 who spent most of his time filling out grant applications for the community prosecution program.

"He didn't handle any cases," Chisholm said. A review of the online circuit court database turns up no cases in which Lutz is listed as a prosecutor.

However, Lutz is a familiar figure to the Chisholm household.

About a decade ago, the former Milwaukee Police Department officer was partners with Jon Osowski, who is Chisholm's brother-in-law. Osowski, an ex-cop seeking duty disability pay, lives with the Chisholm family. For years, Osowski and Lutz were close.

That might explain the sections in Taylor's story in which the source discusses Chisholm and his wife, Colleen. In one section, the source said Chisholm once remarked that his wife had "frequently cried when discussing the topic of the union disbanding and the effect it would have on the people involved...She took it personally."

The source also told Taylor that Chisholm "felt that it was his personal duty to stop Walker from treating people like this."

Even before the article, however, Lutz's relationship with Chisholm and his family took a dramatic and dark turn, according to a spokesman for the prosecutor.

Samuel Leib, an attorney representing Chisholm in a federal lawsuit over the John Doe investigations, said Thursday that Lutz had left a message threatening to kill Chisholm and his family in the past year. He did not provide audio of the voice mail.

In an interview, Osowski said his sister had played two voice mails for him in the past. He said he wasn't sure what prompted the calls, but Lutz seemed extremely upset. It also sounded, he said, like Lutz was intoxicated.

Osowski said he didn't know much more about the matter.

"I stay out of my brother-in-law's business," he said. However, he added, "The idea that my sister is running things, that's hilarious to me."

Tom Boehlke, a former MPD officer who now works as an investigator for Chisholm, said he also listened to the voice mail, which he said he thought had been left about 11/2 years ago. Boehlke described the message with the Chisholm threat as "pretty much a drunken rant."

On Thursday, Lutz did not deny making the call. But he said he did not intend the threat seriously, noting that he still considers Osowski a friend.

"I was drunk," Lutz emphasized.

Several sources close to Lutz said criticism of his recent conduct doesn't mean his statements about Chisholm and his office are false.

In 2010, the Democratic district attorney launched the first John Doe investigation into the Republican governor's tenure as Milwaukee County executive. The secret probe netted six convictions, including three Walker aides, one appointee and a major campaign contributor.

Neither Walker nor anyone in his governor's office was charged with wrongdoing.

Chisholm began a second probe in 2012 to look at whether Walker's campaign had violated state election laws by coordinating its spending with conservative groups during the recall elections. The investigation spread to five counties under the supervision of a special prosecutor.

Three Democratic district attorneys and two Republican ones signed off on the probe two years ago.

That investigation was halted earlier this year by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa, and the matter is now before the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

In the Legal Newsline story, Chisholm is described as "almost hyperpartisan" by the source — Lutz — who said he had lost his respect for the top cop in the wake of the investigations.

His office is described by the source as being "stoutly Democratic." Chisholm has denied that the investigations were driven by a political vendetta.

"(Chisholm) had almost like an anti-Walker cabal of people in his office who were just fanatical about union activities and unionizing," the source told Taylor. "And a lot of them went up and protested. They hung those blue fists on their office walls (to show solidarity with union protesters)...At the same time, if you had some opposing viewpoints that you wished to express, it was absolutely not allowed."

Veteran defense attorney Franklyn Gimbel, a Democrat, said Thursday that he felt politics did enter into the prosecution of his client, Kelly Rindfleisch, who served as a deputy chief of staff under Walker in Milwaukee County.

Rindfleisch pleaded guilty to one count of misconduct in office for raising campaign money for Brett Davis, a failed candidate for lieutenant governor, while working at the courthouse. She is now appealing that conviction despite her guilty plea because she says the evidence used against her was gathered through an unconstitutionally broad search by authorities.

"I believe there were political overtones in the John Doe," Gimbel said.

Gimbel said he believes prosecutors were pushing Rindfleisch to turn over evidence implicating other more prominent people than her, information which Gimbel said she didn't have. Rindfleisch has made the same allegation.

Like several other defense attorneys interviewed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Gimbel said he never saw any examples of a blue fist pro-union symbol in the district attorney's offices

Meanwhile, David Feiss, president of the Association of State Prosecutors, said the statewide union for prosecutors deliberately remained neutral on Act 10 and the recalls for ethical reasons, as well as the practical reason of not wanting to alienate Republicans.

"As a union, we took no public stance," Feiss said.

Feiss, the head of the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Public Integrity Unit, said he hadn't personally worked on either the first or second John Doe probes. He said that some prosecutors in Chisholm's office, including Feiss himself, took personal time off to travel to Madison to protest Walker's law.

Feiss said, however, that he did not display any pro-union items in his office or observe any other prosecutor do so. Feiss said that the closest thing to a labor symbol in the DA's offices was the pro-union bumper sticker on one worker's car.

In an email, Taylor — the author of the story — said he went to the Milwaukee DA's office and to Chisholm's attorney, received a denial from Chisholm's attorney and then asked what specifically was wrong with his story. He said he received no specifics.

But Taylor did not describe other specific reporting steps that he may have taken to verify his source's claims. For instance, in the case of the pro-union signs in Chisholm's offices, he said he didn't seek confirmation from anyone else who might have seen them.

"I did not get further confirmation on the blue fist signs. I was not aware of anyone else in Mr. Chisholm's office who would have been at all likely to confirm my source's so-far-as-I-know uncontested recollections of what he saw," Taylor said.

Several prosecutors said this week that they knew Lutz primarily from his 17 years as an MPD officer, not from his time in their office.

Lutz, who was part of the elite Intelligence Division, was involved in a high-profile incident in 2003 when he shot and paralyzed a man in the 2500 block of N. 27th St. The man later admitted to detectives that he had a gun in his hand when he was shot. The district attorney cleared Lutz, and the man was convicted of disorderly conduct.

A Journal Sentinel story at the time of the incident said Lutz has a long-standing pattern of using force, including one prior shooting, 11 bodily force incidents and 16 pepper-spray incidents. Only two other Milwaukee cops had used force as often during a five-year span.

Lutz was also suspended for 15 days in 1997 for using a racial slur.

In 2005, Lutz was shot in the arm after he and his partner chased a suspected drug dealer into a house on the city's near south side. He never returned to active duty after the incident.

In an opinion written by Justice David Prosser, the state Supreme Court upheld the conviction of the man who shot Lutz for second-degree reckless injury while armed. One of Lutz's partners, Rick Sandoval, later appeared in a campaign ad praising Prosser for his ruling.

Sandoval couldn't be reached for comment.

Lutz filed for duty disability in 2006, saying he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his physical injuries and past media coverage of his actions.

"The entire incident resulted in extraordinary mental and physical injury, far in excess of what any police officer would commonly expect," Lutz wrote in his duty disability application of the fallout from his 2003 shooting.

In 2010, he got his law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and now does primarily criminal defense work. On his firm's website, he notes that he worked in Chisholm's office before going into private practice.

On Thursday, he disputed Chisholm's suggestion that he did little prosecutorial work during his stint in the agency.

"I was a special prosecutor," Lutz said. He declined to say anything further about the Democratic DA.

Journal Sentinel reporters Jason Stein and Patrick Marley contributed to this report.

Contact Daniel Bice at (414) 224-2135 or dbice@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanielBice or on Facebook at fb.me/daniel.bice.