MADISON - A prison sergeant outed five inmates as informants last year, damaging a pair of criminal investigations and leading to death threats against a captain and two inmates.

The Redgranite Correctional Institution sergeant, Robert Wilcox, in January 2018 put pictures of rats next to the names of informants on a list of inmates. The names of informants are supposed to be closely guarded, but a copy of the document was placed in an area where inmates could see it and was soon stolen, state records show.

The threats emerged in the months that followed.

Warden Michael Meisner suspended Wilcox for a day without pay for putting staff and inmates at risk — a punishment that the captain who was threatened called far too light.

Wilcox told internal investigators he did not out the inmates intentionally but was trying to keep track of where inmates were located.

Capt. Jason Wilke learned of the death threat against him in October and said in an interview he lives in fear for himself and his family. The informants had been helping Wilke with investigations of a gang known for drive-by shootings, he said.

“We haven’t sat in our living room since this happened,” he said.

“When you enter the job, you take into account the threats that could possibly take place. You know that. But your family should never be part of that.”

Wilke said he took a medical retirement this January because he feared Department of Corrections officials were about to fire him in retaliation for his complaints about how they handled the incident.

Because the inmates at the medium-security prison were exposed as informants, the target of the investigations clammed up, making it impossible to record him talking about what authorities were interested in, according to Wilke and others familiar with the incident. One of the investigations that was hindered involved a plot to have Milwaukee County Judge Laura Crivello murdered because of her earlier work as a prosecutor.

Waushara County District Attorney Steve Anderson said Thursday he is starting an investigation into Wilke's concerns about how the episode was handled.

And the Department of Corrections — a year after the incident — is looking at the incident again.

"Secretary (Kevin) Carr was briefed on this situation and has directed Department of Corrections staff to review all processes related to this complaint," said Shannon Carpenter, the agency's assistant deputy secretary.

Carr and Carpenter are new to their jobs leading the Department of Corrections. They are part of the team installed by Gov. Tony Evers’ administration after he was sworn in in January.

Carpenter said her agency notified the state Department of Justice and other law enforcement agencies when it learned of the threats against Wilke.

But Kyle Tarr, the Redgranite police chief, said he heard from Wilke but no one else when the threat was made.

“I was a little shocked the institution didn’t contact me about the threats against Captain Wilke,” he said. “That struck me as funny. If one of my guys is getting threatened, I’m getting involved.”

Tarr interrupted his vacation to alert other area law enforcement agencies to the threat and tell them when Wilke and his wife would be in their jurisdictions as they traveled for work. Tarr said only after he told prison officials about his actions did they acknowledge the threat.

Sergeant says he made dumb move

The situation unfolded after Wilcox put images of rats next to the names of five inmates

Wilcox told internal investigators he labeled the inmates as rats to help remind him and other staff members that they could not move the informants around as freely as other inmates. He acknowledged afterward that it was “dumb” to label the inmates as rats on the list, which is known as a range board.

“I never took into account that the range board would end up in an inmate’s hands or that they would take it,” Wilcox told internal investigators.

Wilcox is a member of the Redgranite Village Board and sits on the board’s police and fire committee. He said Thursday he did not want to say anything beyond what he told internal investigators.

Wilcox told internal investigators he chose to label the informants as rats in part because in “the prison setting rats are known as snitches,” state records show. He acknowledged that inmates known as informants could be extorted, beaten up or killed.

Sgt. Kris Allen told internal investigators “the inmates were pretty jacked up” once they learned of what happened, state records show.

Wilke said he was taken aback that Meisner gave Wilcox a one-day suspension instead of a more severe punishment.

"I was flabbergasted, completely flabbergasted by it," he said.

Meisner did not respond to an email Thursday.

The informants had been assisting Wilke with an investigation into allegations that inmate Steven Jordan and his mother, Latasha Savage, were plotting to have Crivello killed. As a prosecutor, Crivello helped secure a 14-year prison sentence for Jordan for dealing heroin.

Jordan and Savage were charged in July with plotting to commit battery against Crivello. In addition, Jordan is charged with soliciting someone to kill Crivello.

Savage in January pleaded no contest and was convicted on the charge of conspiring to commit battery against a prosecutor.

She is slated to be sentenced in February. The charges against Jordan are pending.

Jordan was among a new type of highly mobile drug dealers in Milwaukee, using cars, often stolen, with darkly tinted windows to sell heroin throughout the metro area, reaping as much as $10,000 a day, a Journal Sentinel investigation found.

Jordan was part of a gang known as the Bless Team that raked in cash, putting out music videos as a way to spread its brand, intimidate and recruit. Jordan himself recorded songs in between being busted, boasting he could easily replace the $60,000 in cash drug agents took in one raid.

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In an interview, Wilke said the murder plot case against Jordan would have been stronger had his informants not been outed. Their exposure also “destroyed” another investigation, according to Wilke.

Wilke and Department of Justice agents put together a plan to hide recording devices in areas of the prison where Jordan would be so they could capture him talking to the informants, according to Wilke and others familiar with the matter.

The informants were exposed just before that plan was to be executed. Officials knew their plan might not work at that point, but decided to try anyway, according to Wilke and others. Jordan didn’t say anything that could be used and the informants were transferred to other institutions to protect them, Wilke said.

In August and September, prison officials intercepted letters sent to one of the informants threatening him, his family and another informant.

“I put my money on your head,” one of the unsigned letters said.

Soon afterward, Wilke learned of the threat against him when he was contacted by a captain at another institution.

An inmate there wrote a note to guards in October telling them one of the Redgranite informants is “trying to get Cap Jason Wilke killed,” state records show.

John Diedrich of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.