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In April 2013, four days after her mother was struck and killed by a car driven by former Lutheran bishop Bruce Burnside, UW-Madison student Megan Mengelt received an email from a UW administrator she had never met, asking if she needed help.

What College of Letters and Science assistant dean Tori Richardson didn’t tell Mengelt, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month, was that he had been at the other end of a text message conversation with Burnside as he was driving, shortly before Burnside struck and killed Mengelt’s mother, Maureen Mengelt, in Sun Prairie on April 7, 2013.

Unaware of that fact, Mengelt said, she and Richardson developed a counseling relationship, which Mengelt believed to be “confidential and trusting,” during which Richardson sought information about the ongoing prosecution of Burnside and a potential civil lawsuit against him.

It wasn’t until much later, the lawsuit states, in January 2015, that Mengelt’s family first learned that Richardson was the person who was exchanging text messages with Burnside before he struck and killed Maureen Mengelt as she was taking a training run.

The lawsuit, filed April 5 in Dane County Circuit Court, accuses Richardson of misrepresenting himself throughout the counseling relationship, causing Mengelt to disclose information that she otherwise would not have told him. The discovery of Richardson’s true role in her mother’s death, the lawsuit states, caused “severe and permanent emotional distress” to Mengelt.

According to the lawsuit, Richardson’s April 11, 2013, email offered his own services to Mengelt, or those of an academic adviser already assigned to her. She responded on April 14, 2013, thanking him and telling Richardson that she was going through the most difficult experience of her life. The next day, Richardson responded that Mengelt should not hesitate to contact him personally, and that he would intervene on her behalf with her instructors.

From there, the two had several meetings, the lawsuit states, leading to a trusting counseling relationship.

Burnside, 62, who at the time of the crash was bishop of the South-Central Synod of Wisconsin of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, pleaded guilty in May 2014 to second-degree reckless homicide and drunken driving. He was later sentenced to 10 years in prison, followed by five years of extended supervision. He has appealed the length of the sentence.

Burnside’s blood alcohol concentration was 0.12 percent more than two hours after the crash. Distractions while driving, including sending voice-generated text messages and reading responses to them, and fumbling with a GPS unit, have also been cited as factors in the crash.

At the time of the crash, Burnside was headed to a function at a church in Sun Prairie.

In a statement, UW-Madison spokesman John Lucas said university officials first learned of some of the allegations in Mengelt’s lawsuit in January 2015. An outside investigator found no evidence that Richardson inappropriately shared student records, Lucas said.

“However, it was determined that while his actions were within his job duties, Richardson’s conduct was not in line with our expectations for employees,” Lucas said, and he was suspended without pay for 30 days beginning last May for “not meeting the university’s professional standards.”

Because the alleged conduct occurred on the job, Richardson will be represented in the case by the state Department of Justice, Lucas said.

Richardson did not return a phone message or an email seeking comment Thursday. DOJ spokesman Johnny Koremenos also did not respond to an email inquiry.

The story was first reported by Vice Media web channel Broadly.

An offer of help

After the criminal case against Burnside was finished, the Mengelt family sued Burnside, the ELCA and the synod, along with their insurers. The case is set for a trial in July before Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess.

According to a deposition Richardson gave for that lawsuit, taken on March 2 but filed in court on April 1, Richardson said he contacted Mengelt to let her know that his office was available should she need help.

Richardson said he did so after asking his boss, Letters and Science undergraduate services director Christopher Lee, whether it would be appropriate for him to personally reach out to Mengelt, knowing there were others in the office who also could do it. But he admitted he did not tell Lee that he had been exchanging text messages with Burnside before the crash.

Richardson also said he never told Mengelt that he was acquainted with Burnside or that he was texting with Burnside before the crash.

Asked if he ever considered the emotional consequences to Mengelt should she ever find out, Richardson said he hadn’t.

“When I met with her in April, I was more concerned about her and her — that she was okay after this horrible situation,” Richardson said. He said he never expected to see her again after initially meeting with her in April 2013. But he saw her twice more, in September and November 2013, both times when she wanted to drop a class past the deadline.

By January 2014, Richardson said, he knew that the police had identified him as the person with whom Burnside was exchanging text messages. Even after that point, he said, he exchanged emails with Mengelt, having to do with her use of a university facility after she had taken a break from school. He said he’s had no intentional contact with her since then, although he said he once accidentally included her in a group email.

Richardson said in his deposition that he had met Burnside for the first time at a birthday party in Paoli only two days before the crash. From there, he said, they exchanged hundreds of text messages and had planned to get together at Burnside’s house on the night of April 7, 2013.

Richardson said he learned about the crash on the evening news.

During the text message exchange before the crash, Burnside told Richardson, “I’m on my way to Sun Prairie.” Later, Richardson wrote to Burnside, “I do hope you’re not driving and texting. You will need to be scolded if this is the case.”

Later, Richardson wrote to Burnside, “You still haven’t shared if you are driving? ;)”

Burnside texted at another point, “Ask everything and anything and I will answer honestly. I am driving to Sun Prairie and almost there, so I won’t be responding actually. I’m really racing against time.”

In a deposition for the civil case, taken on March 17 and filed in court on April 1, Burnside testified that Richardson visited him once after the crash while Burnside was undergoing alcohol treatment, and two or three times at home.

He said Richardson barely mentioned the Mengelts or any information he had gleaned from Megan Mengelt.

“He told me one time that he had been contacted by the Sun Prairie police and they — but that’s all,” Burnside said. “But there was never any conversation about the Mengelts, no.”

[Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect additional information provided by the UW-Madison. University officials first learned of some of the allegations against Tori Richardson in January 2015, and his suspension began in May of that year.]

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