Central Wisconsin sheriff suspends election opponent over 2001 case

Eric Litke | Appleton Post-Crescent

ADAMS - A Wisconsin sheriff running for re-election placed his opponent on administrative leave this week, saying he needed to re-examine the officer's testimony in a case from 17 years ago.

The “October surprise” in the Adams County sheriff's race is the latest in a convoluted situation that includes a jailhouse beating that landed another officer in prison, drug arrests of the sheriff’s son and allegations of a coordinated political attack by the sheriff and district attorney.

The controversy is bubbling to the surface in this central Wisconsin county less than a month before Sheriff Sam Wollin squares off against sheriff's Investigator Brent York in the Nov. 6 general election. Wollin announced the discipline Wednesday, hours before a debate between the two.

“I had a lieutenant come to my house, take my badge, my gun, my car,” York said at the Wednesday candidate forum. “From the letter that I received from our district attorney, (this is due to) a 2001 case I was involved in.”

Sheriff Wollin said in an email Thursday that he placed York on leave after getting a copy of a Brady/Giglio notice issued by Adams County District Attorney Tania Bonnett. That standard, based on two Supreme Court cases, requires prosecutors to disclose to the defense when officers who testify at trial have matters in their background that cast doubt on their honesty or credibility.

Bonnett cited apparent conflicting statements York made about what he witnessed when a fellow officer slammed an inmate's head into the wall.

Wollin declined to comment on the timing of the announcement. The memo given to York said the leave is “pending an investigation/determination of the impact the Brady/Giglio Disclosure … may have on your employment and/or assignments.”

The district attorney, who has endorsed Wollin and marched with his campaign float in the Fourth of July parade, defended her decision to take action against York now, saying she only recently became aware of the conflicting statements. She said the county's personnel department found York’s transcript from 2004 in their files and informed her and the sheriff.

“The case is old, the information is not,” said Bonnett, denying her actions had anything to do with the election. “This isn’t a chess piece; it’s a legal obligation I have.”

Bonnett noted that she asked the Wisconsin Department of Justice to weigh in, and an attorney there agreed York’s actions merited the Brady/Giglio disclosure.

But another expert says applying the Brady standard to York’s actions here is a stretch. Ion Meyn, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said Brady is a “pretty demanding standard,” requiring disclosure only if a case goes to trial (about 5 percent of cases do) and only if the prior actions involved are so significant there’s a reasonable chance it could change the outcome of the case at hand.

“It’s not immediately apparent to me why this particular testimony would qualify as Brady evidence,” Meyn said.

York said the timing is transparently political. He noted the 2001 case was previously investigated, and it led to no discipline or charges against him.

York tied this week’s actions to an Aug. 8 meeting with Bonnett, when among other topics she asked how he was handling questions about drug investigations into Sheriff Wollin’s 22-year-old son, Jacob.

“I advised her that I wasn’t addressing it, that I had been questioned about it on several occasions but that I told people I would not address it or talk about it,” York said in an interview. “(Bonnett) wanted me to publicly say there’s nothing there, and I said I don’t know that (to be true).”

'Threat' about sheriff's son

The Adams Police Department arrested Jacob Wollin in December 2016 after officers investigating reports of youth drug use at his house found marijuana and drug paraphernalia, police records show. Marquette County District Attorney Chad Hendee, the special prosecutor in the case, said Jacob Wollin was charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession but reached an agreement in August 2017 that included expunging the case from court records.

Jacob Wollin was also caught with marijuana in Arkansas in March 2017 and in Nebraska this July, police reports show. Hendee said he was not aware of the Arkansas matter when he agreed to expunge Wollin’s Wisconsin case based on his age and general lack of prior record.

According to York, Bonnett discussed how he would address Jacob Wollin’s history in public, then immediately brought up the 2001 case, in which York was a witness in the jailhouse beating of Steven Vosen that led to prison time for a supervisor. Bonnett noted she was aware of it but hadn’t yet spoken about it publicly, York said.

“I perceived that as a threat,” York said. “If I did not defend the situation involving Sheriff Wollin’s son — that nothing illegal or wrong had happened — that DA Bonnett would go public with the Vosen incident.”

Bonnett said she was making sure York wasn’t spreading false information about the son’s case but didn’t ask him to publicly support Jacob Wollin. She said she alluded to the Vosen case but never made an explicit or implied connection between the two.

“Brent is lying to you about that,” she said.

Jacob Wollin’s arrest previously caused controversy among local police because the case file was accessed by several people in the Sheriff's Department, which was not the arresting agency. The Sheriff's Department and Adams police share a file system, but the Jacob Wollin case was put in a segmented section of that system, access records show. Nevertheless, Sheriff Wollin's chief deputy printed out the arrest report, and Wollin himself accessed the file. Wollin said earlier this year he did so only to see his son’s mugshot.

Federal, state charges in 2001 case

At issue in Bonnett’s Brady decision is a February 2001 incident in which Steven Vosen was assaulted while at the Adams County Jail.

York arrested Vosen, then 46, of Friendship, and brought him to jail after a report that he was drunk and had fought with and threatened to kill a neighbor, according to York’s 2001 Sheriff's Department report.

At the jail, then-Undersheriff Kenneth Bitsky slammed Vosen’s head into the wall, and he later tried to persuade two sheriff’s deputies not to talk about it, according to media reports at the time. Bitsky was sentenced to 16 months in prison after being convicted in federal court of witness intimidation and in state court of two counts of disorderly conduct.

The question is what led up to Bitsky’s actions. York was in the room and helped restrain Vosen after the confrontation, and he gave slightly different accounts of those events.

York’s original report in February 2001 said Vosen refused to obey orders to sit down and “appeared that he was going to swing at Undersheriff Bitsky.”

York made similar statements to a state investigator a month later, according to a summary the state justice department cited in a letter to Bonnett. But in an October 2004 deposition in a civil lawsuit Vosen filed, York stated he didn’t see Vosen make a threatening gesture. He said information in his report was based on what Bitsky told him he saw, since Bitsky was in the room as York dictated the report, the state's letter said.

York declined to clarify what he saw when USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin asked about it this week.

A letter Bonnett wrote informing York of the Brady/Giglio notice said that York denied at the deposition that he was investigated over the Vosen matter, but a state agent who attempted to interview Vosen in 2003 wrote in a report that she told York she was investigating him for allegedly obstructing the investigation and filing a false police report.

Bonnett said she reached out to the Department of Justice after learning of the transcript in September and reviewing it.

Assistant Attorney General Randall Schneider wrote to Bonnett on Oct. 8 that he believed York’s actions required a Brady disclosure because “they arguably reflect on York’s character for truthfulness.”