Micah Laureano with his mother, Phyllis, who filed a lawsuit after Micah's death | Photo courtesy Phyllis Laureno

Jackson Vogel allegedly told a corrections officer that he killed his cellmate, Micah Laureano, because Laureano was Black and gay. A case report the Examiner received from the Brown County Sheriff’s Office shows Vogel had  a history of racist and threatening behavior.

After Laureano died in late August at Green Bay Correctional Institution (GBCI), Vogel was charged with homicide with hate crime and repeat offender penalties, the Examiner reported. 

Micah Laureano’s mother, Phyllis Laureano, has sued Secretary Jared Hoy and GBCI warden Christopher Stevens of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. The federal civil rights lawsuit alleges “defendants’ willful and deliberate indifference to Mr. Laureano’s safety” resulted in the murder. 

The sheriff’s office said the suspect and victim had occupied the same cell for only hours before the incident. The statement said the medical examiner’s findings confirmed Laureano died of strangulation/suffocation by manner of homicide. 

Beth Hardtke, communications director for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, said both individuals involved in the incident were in temporary lockup status. 

Before Laureano’s death, Vogel, 25, had been found guilty of attempted first-degree intentional homicide, the Examiner reported in late August. Laureano, 19, had been found guilty of taking and driving a vehicle without consent and as party to a crime for substantial battery intending bodily harm, robbery with use of force and first-degree recklessly endangering safety.

Conduct reports

A narrative in a Brown County Sheriff’s Office case report described information from a few conduct reports Vogel received. The Examiner received the report last year through an open records request.

Sergeant Justin Raska reviewed conduct reports for Laureano and Vogel, according to the case report. He found nothing relevant in Laureano’s reports but wrote about three of Vogel’s infractions. 

The first report Raska described was dated March 5, 2024, and was completed by a staff member at the Racine Youthful Offender Correctional Facility (RYOCF). The staff had received inmate complaint forms filed by Vogel that “contained obscene, profane, abusive and threatening language,” some of which was written in German, according to the description of the incident. 

The complaints included swastika symbols. According to the report, Vogel’s writing included the words “you all need and deserve Death!” and “White Power (WLM).” He voiced support for Adolf Hitler and the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist gang.

A second conduct report was dated March 6, 2024, according to Raska. A lieutenant received interview request forms from Vogel, which were written to several staff members at RYOCF and made “numerous disrespectful racial remarks.” 

The request forms included “several inappropriate remarks and symbols,” such as SS Bolts and “das Endlosung.” This referenced Hitler’s “Final Solution” of mass murder of Jewish people, according to the report. 

The third conduct report described by Raska was completed by a sergeant at GBCI and dated August 27, 2024, the day of Laureano’s death.

Incarcerated people were removed from a cell so that maintenance could fix a clogged sink, according to the report. Unit staff discovered the wooden bulletin board was broken, and the sergeant heard from unit staff that Vogel admitted to breaking the board because he was bored.

The bulletin board had jagged edges and it was unsafe to house incarcerated people in the cell, according to the report. This might have led to Vogel being housed in a different cell, with Laureano.

Laureano and Vogel’s cell was in a “segregated Treatment Center area,” according to a narrative in the case report by Raska.

Raska said he was told “the Treatment Center block” serves as a “step unit” to bridge the gap between restricted housing and general population housing. Restricted housing includes disciplinary separation — which occurs when an incarcerated person commits a violation. 

Raska said the treatment center serves as an alternative to single cell segregation in the restricted housing unit. He said incarcerated people could be housed in the treatment center due to clinical observation or because of a pending investigation. 

Lawsuit alleges ‘deliberate indifference’

Laureano’s lawsuit contains three Eighth Amendment counts. It alleges deliberate indifference to Laureano’s safety, failure to protect Laureano and failure to train subordinates. The lawsuit does not mention Vogel’s conduct reports or the racist statements mentioned in them.

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants didn’t consider and/or willfully ignored Vogel’s “substantial history of violent assault, mental health issues, and multi-decade length of sentence when assessing his compatibility with Mr. Laureano,” who was serving a lesser sentence of three years.

It also alleges that defendants failed to “adequately train, monitor and supervise GBCI staff” to make sure administrative requirements and protocols were being followed during housing decisions. 

Phyllis Laureano is represented by attorney Lonnie Story, who said he has spoken to incarcerated people who might be deposed prior to a trial. 

“It was very apparent to the inmates, as well as what — from what they communicate to me about staff, it would be kind of hard to deny by anyone… to say there was no knowledge of Mr. Vogel being a racist, and expressing other very negative opinions and ideas outside of just the race factor,” Story said, adding that this applied to sexual orientation.  

On Sept. 10, the Examiner made an open records request to the DOC, requesting reports regarding incidents involving Vogel and/or Laureano. The request’s status is “in progress” in the DOC’s open records request portal. 

Beth Hardtke, the communications director for the DOC, said it’s the DOC’s practice not to comment on cases where there is ongoing litigation. 

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