FBI investigating Wisconsin sheriff for hacking officer's Dropbox

MEDFORD - A Wisconsin sheriff’s decision to hack a subordinate’s online file-sharing account has sparked an FBI investigation, officials confirmed.

The inquiry into Taylor County Sheriff Bruce Daniels is the latest in a sprawling departmental dispute that began when an investigator on his staff shared unsolved-homicide files with a television documentary crew helping on another cold case.

In the 14 months since, the investigator has been suspended, demoted and criminally charged, the county has racked up thousands of dollars in legal bills and now the sheriff himself may land in hot water.

The issue dates to February 2017, when Daniels assigned then-Sgt. Steve Bowers to work with the Oxygen network's “Cold Justice” TV show for a feature on an unsolved Taylor County homicide. While investigating the 1999 slaying of Eugene Monte with the show’s two stars — a retired Milwaukee homicide division chief and a former Texas prosecutor — Bowers also discussed two other unsolved local homicides.

At their urging, Bowers then shared case files with staffers from the show, who had been cleared by Daniels and other officials to have full access to the confidential file in the Monte case. Bowers turned over physical files for one case and a digital case file for the other through a link to his personal Dropbox folder.

Bowers said he was just trying to solve the cases.

Daniels saw it as a major breach of confidentiality and protocol.

The sheriff ordered the show to return the physical files immediately and enlisted the county's information technology director to shut down Bowers’ Dropbox account, according to testimony in a three-day disciplinary hearing convened in October when Daniels sought to fire Bowers. (The committee ultimately reduced the discipline to a three-month suspension and a double demotion down to deputy.)

At Daniels’ direction and with Taylor County District Attorney Kristi Tlusty also present, IT Director Melissa Seavers used the “forgot password” link to have a new password sent to Bowers’ work email. She then accessed that email account to change the password — in an attempt to lock out Bowers — and removed the access rights “Cold Justice” staffers had to the digital case file.

Bowers personally paid for the Dropbox account and had used it for years, almost exclusively for personal file storage. Seavers said about 95 percent of the files on Bowers’ Dropbox were personal. Bowers said the rest were investigative files he copied so he could access them while working away from the office.

Bowers sought an investigation of the Dropbox breach, saying the move that eventually yielded his discipline and criminal charges might have been illegal. He filed a complaint with the Medford Police Department that Chief Bryan Carey then turned over to the FBI. Carey said the federal agency “took the case” in January or February.

It’s not clear whether that investigation remains open, but Bowers said the FBI has yet to contact him. FBI spokesman Leonard Peace this week said the agency does not confirm or deny ongoing investigations.

Daniels did not reply to phone messages seeking comment.

The FBI investigation is not the first misconduct inquiry into Daniels, who has been sheriff since 2007 but announced he will not seek re-election this fall. The state Department of Justice investigated Daniels in 2012 after he reportedly pressured another agency to list his son's traffic crash as non-reportable, even though it caused enough damage to require a report under state law. The state didn't find grounds to charge him with misconduct in office.

Bowers says he meant no harm, did no harm

In an interview this week, Bowers said he is stunned at the avalanche of repercussions he’s faced for trying to solve a case.

The TV show investigators, he said, are “trained professionals and have way more experience than anyone in our department, and I was trying to solve these cases and get justice for the victims and their families."

The case files were from two decade-old homicides that remain unsolved:

► Jean Viken was found shot to death in May 2008, 12 miles from where the 38-year-old mother of four was last seen at her Taylor County home four months earlier, according to published reports.

► Terrence Boushon’s body was found in June 2006 near Medford, more than a year after he was reported missing in the Taylor County village of Withee. His cause of death was never released.

Bowers was charged in October with felony misconduct in office for disclosing “police reports from pending investigations without supervisor approval.” The charge carries a penalty of up to 18 months in prison. The state Attorney General’s Office is prosecuting the case because of a conflict of interest for the Taylor County district attorney.

Bowers, who has been on administrative leave since his suspension ended in February, said he simply got “caught up in” the teamwork with the “Cold Justice” crew and was thinking of them as he would another law enforcement agency. He took responsibility and apologized immediately after the sheriff raised objections to the release, according to an email he sent the sheriff that is quoted in the criminal complaint against Bowers.

“There’s been a lot of people, including the sheriff and the Attorney General’s Office, that think I did this in an effort to become famous or something. I did it simply to solve some crimes,” Bowers said. “I get no benefit out of it. I didn’t get paid by the show I was on. I wouldn’t have gotten like a finder’s fee or anything … It makes no sense.”

The Bowers investigation has run up a tab of at least $50,000, according to county records. Taylor County is responsible for a little more than $20,000, while its insurance covers the rest.

Show’s investigator slams charges, discipline

Steve Spingola, the former Milwaukee cop who serves as the lead investigator on the show, said the criminal charges and discipline of Bowers are “outrageous.” He said nearly every agency they’ve worked with has discussed and provided documents on other cold cases while filming the show.

“I don’t know what happened up in Taylor County that this sheriff went off the deep end on Bowers. I honest-to-god don’t understand it,” Spingola said this week. “I can’t believe that (Attorney General Brad Schimel) would authorize this assistant DOJ person to prosecute him.”

DOJ spokesman Johnny Koremenos declined to comment since the case is ongoing.

Sheriff Daniels and District Attorney Tlusty said at the disciplinary hearing they objected to Bowers’ release of the files because those cases had not been vetted for release like the Monte case was prior to signing on with “Cold Justice.” They noted the files contained personal data, sealed search warrants and other investigative documents that would be problematic if released publicly.

“I viewed it as a very serious breach of confidentiality (that) violates the rights of many of these people,” Daniels told the committee in October, according to the transcript. “It violated orders of the court, state and federal laws, and it really was prohibited by our policies and could have an adverse impact on both of those cases.”

When pressed by Bowers’ attorney, neither Daniels nor Tlusty could describe a way the cases were affected by the release. Both acknowledged they had deemed the show’s staff trustworthy by turning over privileged case-files on Monte, who was shot in the living room of a remote cabin in western Taylor County in February 1999.

The episode, which aired in September, identified a suspect in the Monte death and accumulated new evidence. Tlusty has not filed charges in the case.