Daniel Bice

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee County auditors have run into a wall with their investigation into whether Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. abused taxpayer resources after his run-in with a 24-year-old Riverwest man on a Milwaukee flight earlier this year.

Clarke, specifically, is not letting auditors interview Milwaukee County deputies or other staffers as part of the probe.

So county audit director Jerry Heer — without identifying which investigation he is talking about — is asking the Milwaukee County Board to allow him to spend up to $35,000 to hire an outside attorney to take Clarke to court to force the issue.

On a 4-0 vote, the Judiciary, Safety and General Services Committee endorsed the request Thursday. The matter now goes to the finance committee next week and then the full County Board on April 20.

Supervisor Willie Johnson Jr., chairman of the judiciary committee, said no one is above the law, which allows auditors to look into possible wrongdoing anywhere in county government. "It's a problem inasmuch as what he is doing or people in his office are doing is ignoring the ordinance," Johnson said of the sheriff.

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Clarke responded to the committee's actions in a cryptic email statement: "##MakeAmericaGreatAgain. #MakeAmericaSafeAgain."

Heer would not confirm whether his request for outside legal help had to do with his agency's investigation into Clarke's dispute with Dan Black on a flight from Dallas to Milwaukee in mid-January — though others said that was the case.

"The sheriff has given us documents, he's allowed us talk to his command staff but he won't let us interview members of his rank-and-file staff," Heer said. "When I say we've talked to command staff, that's been more about contacts and process. We have not been able to interview anyone with direct knowledge of the subject of our investigation."

Black alleged in his complaint that he was harassed by Clarke on Jan. 15.

In the complaint, Black says he saw Clarke — decked out in a Dallas Cowboys baseball hat and shirt — on the American Airlines flight but wasn't sure it was the sheriff because he wasn't wearing his signature Stetson.

"As I passed him," Black wrote. "I asked if he was Sheriff Clarke, and he responded in the affirmative. I shook my head as I was moving on to my seat near the back of the plane. From behind, he asked if I had a problem. I shook my head 'no' again and continued to my seat."

When he got off the plane, Black said, he was met by a group of six uniformed deputies and two dogs, all of whom were accompanied by the sheriff. Black said he was then escorted to the waiting area and questioned by two deputies for 15 minutes and escorted from the airport.

Clarke later taunted and threatened Black in posts on his county Facebook page and on Twitter. In one post, the sheriff said Black might get "knocked out" if he "pulls this stunt" again. A Facebook meme with a picture of Black read: "Cheer up, Snowflake. If Sheriff Clarke were to really harass you, you wouldn't be around to whine about it."

Black has since filed a federal lawsuit against Clarke and the county.

In late January, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele referred Black's complaint to Heer's office to see if the sheriff was guilty of fraud, waste or abuse.

But Clarke dismissed the matter, calling it a "political witch hunt" and a "fake investigation" driven by politics. The sheriff also said he would refuse to cooperate in the matter.

In his note to the judiciary committee, Heer said his staff needed to interview staffers in the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office as part of its unspecified probe. But he said Clarke's agency had responded in writing that county auditors do not have "the authority to conduct interviews of MCSO law enforcement personnel related to their LE (law enforcement) duties."

The two sides and county lawyers have debated that issue, but Heer wrote that they have been unable to resolve the impasse. "All parties concur that court action is necessary," he wrote.

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