Former corrections chief: Wisconsin's AG Brad Schimel 'completely botched' probe of teen prison

MADISON - Gov. Scott Walker’s former corrections secretary said the attorney general had “completely botched” a probe into abuses at Wisconsin’s teen prison by failing to review incident reports or check medical records after months of investigation.

Former Corrections Secretary Ed Wall said Attorney General Brad Schimel passed off the investigation to the FBI a year after it began as a “Hail Mary pass” to “get it out of their lap.” Wall also contended Walker had not taken problems at Lincoln Hills School for Boys seriously enough, saying the matter had been “shuffled off by the governor’s office.”

Wall made his comments Sunday on Madison’s WKOW-TV as he discussed a book he is writing about his time as a cabinet secretary to Walker. He stood by his claims in an interview Tuesday with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

A spokesman for the GOP attorney general on Tuesday contended Wall was attempting to "retaliate" against Schimel with "misinformation" but did not answer whether Wall's claims that investigators failed to review medical records were true.

Wall stepped down as corrections secretary in 2016 as details of the Lincoln Hills probe became public. Before that, he headed the criminal investigation unit at the state Department of Justice.

Wall briefly returned to DOJ after he resigned as corrections secretary, but was quickly fired by Schimel because of a dispute over a letter he wrote that mentioned shredding records.

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Wall started an internal investigation of Lincoln Hills in October 2014 and soon afterward asked DOJ to open a criminal probe.

DOJ conducted its investigation of the prison north of Wausau for about a year and then turned it over to the FBI. The investigation is ongoing and federal prosecutors recently told two former guards they could be charged.

The probe is looking into allegations of prisoner abuse, child neglect and other crimes. Separately, state officials face multiple lawsuits over the facility, including one that resulted in a court order to reduce the use of solitary confinement and pepper spray.

Wall noted the lead investigator Schimel assigned to the case worked on it part time. Work on Lincoln Hills was put off as the investigator focused on other cases, Wall said.

Department of Justice officials were "dragging their feet unbearably” and the Lincoln Hills probe was “constantly put on the back burner,” Wall told WKOW.

"The FBI involvement in the end was a Hail Mary pass by the Department of Justice," Wall said. "They just wanted to get it out of their lap.

"It had been completely botched.”

Records from the Department of Justice and Department of Corrections show the probe was conducted in fits and starts when Schimel’s agency was in charge of it.

Wall said the DOJ had created a timeline that was “20 feet long” about its work on the probe, but that the timeline included significant gaps. Schimel's office declined to release a copy of the timeline last year.

Wall said he found out in November 2015 that Department of Justice investigators had not gathered medical records or prison reports about incidents in which teen inmates said their arms had been broken by staff. Wall expressed alarm that investigators had not taken those basic steps to try to verify the claims.

In December 2016, Schimel said he should have devoted more agents to the Lincoln Hills investigation, saying in an interview that “hindsight’s 20/20.”

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But Wall said hindsight had nothing to do with it. Wall said he repeatedly pressed Schimel’s office at the time to give more attention to the Lincoln Hills probe — to no avail.

"What’s more important than (investigating) hurting kids?" Wall said during his WKOW interview.

Schimel spokesman Johnny Koremenos did not say whether Wall's claims about failing to review medical records were accurate. In a statement, Koremenos said Wall had been fired "after advocating that another government employee break the law by destroying public records."

"Unfortunately, in a sad attempt to retaliate, Wall is peddling misinformation to distract from his failure as secretary of the Department of Corrections and the fact that law enforcement needed to be brought in to conduct a criminal investigation into the institutions that he was responsible to oversee," Koremenos said in his statement.

Wall said Tuesday he wasn't surprised Koremenos would not talk about DOJ failing to review medical records because multiple people became aware of it during a November 2015 meeting.

"Brad Schimel has plenty to be concerned with and it is no surprise that he will try and shift blame or discredit the truth," Wall said.

Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said the GOP governor dealt appropriately with issues at Lincoln Hills and other prisons he runs.

"We take the safety and security of all our institutions seriously and will not comment on the statements made by Mr. Wall, who was fired by the Department of Justice for asking a state employee to violate the state’s open records law," Evenson said by email.

Schimel's Democratic opponent, attorney Josh Kaul, criticized Schimel for his handling of the case and said the Department of Justice should "re-join the investigation."

"Brad Schimel shouldn’t have dragged his feet and then taken a back seat on this investigation," Kaul said in a statement. "This involves the safety of youth and staff at state juvenile facilities, and the Wisconsin Department of Justice should have remained actively involved in the investigation."

After Wall stepped down as corrections secretary in February 2016, he tried to return to his DOJ job heading the Division of Criminal Investigation. Schimel moved him to a different position and put him on paid leave to avoid any conflicts with the Lincoln Hills probe.

Wall sought to get his old job back by writing a letter to Walker’s chief of staff, Rich Zipperer, and giving him a draft of a workplace complaint he was considering filing. Wall sent the material to Zipperer's home and told him he should "feel free to shred it once you've looked it over."

Zipperer made the letter public and Schimel fired Wall in April 2016 for advocating shredding public documents. The Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission and a Dane County judge upheld Wall’s firing.

Wall, now chief executive officer of New Hampshire computer security firm NetShield Corp., said Tuesday he is in final negotiations with a publisher and expects his book to be out by August.