John Ferak

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Why was October 2005 an especially nerve-wracking time at the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Office?

That month, one at a time, Sheriff Kenneth Petersen, Lt. Detective James Lenk, Sgt. Andrew Colborn and a host of others were paraded into a Manitowoc law firm's conference room. They sat at a table across from a video camera. They gave sworn testimony as part of a contentious $36 million federal civil rights lawsuit against their employer and their long-time former boss, Sheriff Tom Kocourek.

Guess who was also in the room? Steven Avery.

The lawsuit plaintiff had the opportunity to be present during these videotaped pretrial deposition proceedings. Back in 1985, Avery had been the victim of a horrendously botched rape investigation led by Manitowoc County's cops. Avery was robbed of 18 years of his freedom as a result of that gross miscarriage of justice.

Two decades later, Avery was practically guaranteed a wrongful conviction payout in the neighborhood of $8.6 million — that's the average civil award for someone who loses 18 years to a wrongful imprisonment case. But there was a lot more at stake with Avery's lawsuit besides the county's money. Professional reputations and future pensions of the county's top cops were under assault.

Then, suddenly, Avery's lawsuit took an unexpected detour. A freelance photographer for Auto Trader Magazine vanished without a trace that Halloween. Teresa Halbach was a regular visitor to the Avery Salvage Yard in Manitowoc County. Her family reported her missing on Nov. 3. In less than a week, Avery was arrested for her murder, though he forcefully maintained his innocence.

A couple months ago, I decided to reopen the merits of Avery's $36 million lawsuit. For starters, I wanted to track down the video depositions that were shown periodically during last December's blockbuster docu-series "Making A Murderer."

In 2005, I was a journalist in Omaha, Nebraska, so I was not here in Wisconsin during any of the highly sensationalized pretrial news media coverage mostly orchestrated by special prosecutor Ken Kratz. I wasn't here for the jury trials of Avery and Brendan Dassey, either.

In retrospect, I found it intriguing that Avery's lawsuit conveniently faded out of the public spotlight at the same time that several Manitowoc County Sheriff's detectives had a role in uncovering vital evidence later used to convict Avery of Halbach's murder. Broke, jailed and facing murder charges, Avery settled his $36 million lawsuit for only $400,000. He needed money to hire Dean Strang and Jerry Buting to mount a vigorous defense for his upcoming murder trial.

So that began my journey to hunt down the transcripts involving Avery's long-forgotten lawsuit. Initially, I figured these depositions were part of the federal courts record, but I was wrong.

Neither the written transcripts nor the video depositions had been officially introduced as evidence or exhibits. After all, Avery's lawsuit was pretty much suspended once he went to jail for the Halbach slaying.

Fortunately, a series of phone calls led me to the Magne-Script Video Court Reporting service here in Wisconsin. More than a decade ago, the professional court reporting service was hired to record the pretrial depositions in Avery's lawsuit. That company, not the lawyers or the courts, retained possession of the material, which is also subject to copyright laws.

All told, there were 35 pretrial depositions already taken in the Avery lawsuit, mostly of Manitowoc County employees. Access to the court transcripts would not be cheap. Court reporting firms charge a standard rate for access to depositions and transcripts. Ultimately, I settled on acquiring access to the written and video depositions for five Manitowoc County sheriff's officials. Three of those five had the unique distinction of being deposed in Avery's lawsuit and also having a hand in securing Avery's arrest for murder just three weeks later.

The five people I selected were:

Andrew Colborn, sheriff's sergeant. When Colborn worked in the county jail in 1995, he received a call from a Brown County detective who believed he had an inmate in the Green Bay jail, now known to be Gregory Allen, who committed a rape in Manitowoc County that someone else was in prison for. Colborn and his supervisors decided not to vigorously pursue the matter at the time.

Judy Dvorak, former sheriff's deputy. Dvorak had a direct role in the botched Penny Beerntsen rape investigation from 1985. Dvorak made up her mind that the rape victim's description of her attacker sounded like Avery, who was Dvorak's neighbor at the time. Dvorak would reveal how she despised Avery, who had no history of sexual violence at the time and also had a solid alibi to account for his whereabouts at the time of the rape.

Gene Kusche, retired chief investigator. Kusche drew the composite that resulted in Avery's wrongful arrest and convction in the 1985 rape case. Other sheriff's deputies suggested Kusche used a recent jail mug shot of Avery to trace as his composite. That sketch was then shown to the rape victim who agreed it resembled her attacker.

James Lenk, detective lieutenant. In 2003, Lenk and Colborn met privately with Sheriff Petersen to discuss previously withheld information that might have sparked Avery's exoneration from prison eight years sooner. After the meeting, Colborn and Lenk wrote up separate reports that the sheriff put into his agency's sealed vault and the matter was never discussed any further.

Kenneth Petersen, sheriff of Manitowoc County. Back in 1985, Petersen was the sergeant who erroneously arrested Avery for the rape that Gregory Allen committed. He was sheriff at the time of Avery's 2003 exoneration and when Avery was arrested for murdering Halbach, whose bones were found in a burn pit outside Avery's bedroom. Petersen told a Green Bay TV station it would have been "a whole lot easier to eliminate (Avery) than it would to frame him."

Next week, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin plans to bring you five-minute daily snippets of these sworn video depositions. Why should you care to watch some videotaped depositions from a civil lawsuit of more than 10 years ago?

These videos can help you better understand why Avery's criminal defense attorneys Dean Strang and Jerry Buting remain zealous advocates for Avery's innocence to this very day, despite his conviction by a jury. Strang and Buting still believe the small-town county cops were so fueled by hatred and revenge toward Avery over his lawsuit that they raced to the conclusion that Avery killed Halbach without exploring other suspects.

As an example, you will see for yourself that Kusche refused to admit under oath that Avery had been proven innocent of the 1985 rape even though DNA evidence conclusively proved that Allen committed the violent assault.

Furthermore, these videos may help explain why two of Petersen's most dependable detectives, Lenk and Colborn, defied a publicly stated conflict of interest order and faced no repercussions for their behavior. On Nov. 8, 2005, Lenk and Colborn came up with a spare key for Halbach's SUV on Avery's bedroom floor. The key was found under suspicious circumstances and it only contained the DNA of Avery, not Halbach.

At the time Halbach vanished, Avery's civil lawyers were weighing whether to add Sheriff Petersen, Colborn or Lenk as co-defendants to their still-developing lawsuit, partly based on these videotaped depositions from mid-October 2005.

Regardless of whether you believe Avery is guilty or innocent of Halbach's murder, this much is certain: the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Office conveniently walked away unscathed from Avery's high-profile civil rights lawsuit that was making a spectacle of the county's cops, particularly its leadership division.

The truth is in these video tapes.

John Ferak: 920-993-7115 or jferak@gannett.com; on Twitter@johnferak