When her son was a teenager, Connecticut mom Amy Wadsworth said, he was the type of kid parents rarely worry about.

He played sports, cared about his health and stayed away from drugs. In 2018, when he left West Hartford to start his freshman year at American University in Washington, D.C., she expected his biggest challenge would be adjusting to college life.

Instead, she said, he began using cannabis to cope with social anxiety and as a sleep aid.

Within months, Wadsworth’s son was calling home in the middle of the night, terrified and disoriented.

Over the next several years, his behavior became increasingly erratic, he had psychotic episodes and he was eventually diagnosed with severe cannabis use disorder. That’s when a person’s marijuana use becomes difficult to control and begins interfering with daily life.

Now 25, Wadsworth’s son has spent much of the past several years cycling through hospitals and treatment programs across the country.

“It’s definitely changed the trajectory of his life,” Wadsworth said. “It did nothing but harm him, literally harm every facet of his life — every facet, physical, mental, everything.”

States have spent the past several decades debating whether to legalize cannabis. Now, they are debating how intoxicating legal products should be.

A growing body of research suggests that frequent use of high-THC cannabis increases the risk of cannabis use disorder, psychosis and other mental health problems for users, particularly adolescents and young adults. In response, lawmakers in some states this year have moved to impose stricter potency caps, while others have scaled back or rejected such measures amid industry opposition and uncertainty over research findings.

While cannabis flower once commonly contained THC levels in the single digits, many products sold legally today contain 15% to 20% THC or more. Concentrates — such as waxes, oils and shatter — can exceed 80%.

About 15% of Americans ages 12 and older reported using marijuana in the past month in 2024, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. And about 3 in 10 people who use cannabis have cannabis use disorder, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some public health researchers and addiction specialists argue that public perceptions of marijuana have not kept pace with the growing availability of high potency products. They say broader legalization efforts — including the federal government’s recent move to reclassify medical marijuana as a less restrictive drug under the Controlled Substances Act — may reinforce the belief that cannabis is harmless.

“Moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III doesn’t help me save lives by decreasing the perception of that risk,” said Dr. Alta DeRoo, the chief medical officer of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, one of the largest nonprofit treatment providers for addiction and mental health. DeRoo also is a board-certified addiction medicine physician and OB-GYN.

Some state efforts to impose potency limits have been stalled by resistance from the cannabis industry and questions about how far governments should go in regulating a legal product.

In Connecticut, lawmakers this year reinstated a 35% THC cap on flower just weeks after voting to eliminate it. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle said they were concerned about the potential public health effects of increasingly potent marijuana products.

At the same time, the legislation moved forward with other cannabis market expansions. Lawmakers removed a 70% THC cap on concentrates, increased the amount of THC allowed in certain cannabis-infused beverages and expanded the market to include products such as topicals, tablets and capsules.

Proposals to cap THC potency have surfaced in statehouses across the country for years. This year, lawmakers in California, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Oregon and South Dakota introduced similar measures, though most did not advance.

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law in May that removes the state’s previous 5% THC potency cap starting July 1. The new law will also add a 12,000 mg possession limit for registered medical cannabis patients and allow patients over 21 to vaporize medical marijuana.

‘A perennial debate’

Lawmakers across the country have proposed a range of measures aimed at limiting the potency of cannabis products.

In Washington state, Democratic state Rep. Lauren Davis has spent years trying to place guardrails on high-potency cannabis products. Since 2020, she has introduced at least five bills that would have capped THC levels in concentrates or imposed safeguards, including age restrictions, warning labels and a higher tax rate on products with elevated THC levels.

Most of those measures were thwarted by opposition from the cannabis industry, Davis told Stateline.

Industry groups and cannabis businesses argued that Washington’s existing regulations already protected consumers and kept cannabis away from minors. Opponents also warned that limiting high-THC products would drive consumers to the illicit market, hurting legal businesses and exposing users to unregulated, possibly contaminated products.

“(The industry) then went on to basically rain down all fire and brimstone and crush every bill that I’ve ever attempted in this area,” Davis said.

The only proposal to become law was a 2024 measure that requires retailers to warn customers about the association between high-potency THC products and psychotic disorders.

Washington state does not currently impose THC caps on flower or concentrates, but it does set limits on edibles and beverages.

Nearly all states have some form of medical-only or hybrid medical and recreational cannabis program, but just eight states, Connecticut, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, have potency caps on some products, including flower, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Potency limits on edibles are far more common.

“This is a perennial debate that comes up in Vermont and elsewhere around higher potency products,” said James Pepper, who chairs the Vermont Cannabis Control Board, the agency that regulates the state’s market.

“I feel like the concerns are certainly real,” he added.

In Oklahoma, a recent incident in which a 4-year-old boy was hospitalized and remained unconscious for more than a day after his parents said he ingested a 1,000 mg edible found at a playground has added to growing debate over high-potency cannabis products in the state.

“We know that some of our medical patients truly do need higher potency products, but do we really need a 2,000 milligram gummy available for anyone with a patient license to purchase in an Oklahoma dispensary?” said Adria Berry, the executive director of the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, which oversees the state’s medical market.

Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt also signed a measure into law last month that will take effect in November, adding stricter packaging and labeling requirements, including restrictions intended to prevent products from resembling candy or appealing to children.

While some industry experts acknowledge the potential harms, they say the focus should be on consumer education and clear information about potency and effects, rather than new restrictions.

An official with Trulieve, a cannabis company that operates dispensaries in eight states, told Stateline that its products are independently tested and that potency information is available for customers to review and ask questions about, including a product’s effects.

“We believe that that piece of information is critical for a consumer to make an educated decision on what type and what potency of product they are looking to consume,” said Lauren Niehaus, Trulieve’s executive director of government relations.

Some advocacy and trade groups, such as the National Cannabis Industry Association and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), argue that policymakers should steer consumers into tightly regulated legal markets rather than imposing blanket THC caps that could push some users back to illicit sellers. They say that accurate labeling, child-resistant packaging and public education campaigns are the best strategies to protect public health and prevent youth access.

“It’s undoubtedly safer and better for public health outcomes to regulate these products,” said Adam Rosenberg, who chairs the board of the National Cannabis Industry Association.

Paul Armentano, NORML’s deputy director, said potency caps oversimplify the risks of cannabis products and fail to account for how consumers actually use them. Consumers view ultra-potent products as a novelty, he said, and ultimately gravitate toward lower-potency options.

“When you look at state-tracked sales in legal states, cannabis flower or botanical cannabis still outsells every other product, and I would dare say it’s because that is the most moderate to low potency product available on the shelf, and that’s what most people want,” Armentano said.

Armentano also argued that some of the strongest calls for THC limits come from opponents of legalization, who see potency restrictions as a way to gradually roll back access to legal cannabis.

What the research says

A study published earlier this year in JAMA Health Forum found that adolescents who use cannabis, including products with higher potencies, had a significantly increased risk of developing psychotic and bipolar disorders, along with higher risks of depression and anxiety. The research followed about 463,000 adolescents in Northern California between ages 13 and 17 and tracked outcomes into early adulthood. The study did not, however examine whether the use of higher-potency products is more likely to cause psychotic and bipolar disorders.

But other research has linked frequent use of high-potency cannabis to a greater risk of psychosis and psychotic disorders, particularly among heavy users. Several studies have found a dose-response relationship, meaning the risk tends to rise as THC concentration and frequency of use increase. Experts caution, however, that many studies cannot definitively prove that cannabis causes psychosis and that individual risk varies widely.

Other research suggests the risk of developing psychosis may be higher for adolescents and young adults, whose brains are still developing, as well as people with existing mental health conditions or a family history of psychotic disorders.

“I’ve seen patients come through our facilities where they haven’t done any other drugs other than just high-potency marijuana, and their psychosis is remarkable,” said DeRoo, of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. “They don’t have a grasp of reality. They come in seeing things, they come in believing things, alternate realities.”

John Puls, a psychotherapist and addiction specialist in Florida, has seen similar patterns in his practice at Full Life Comprehensive Care, particularly among adolescents and young adults using high-potency products.

He said families often don’t believe cannabis alone could be driving such dramatic changes. Beyond psychosis, he added, cannabis can chip away at more ordinary parts of life: Motivation drops, executive functioning suffers, patients miss appointments or forget obligations, and short‑term memory and relationships start to fray.

Some medical and industry experts say that cannabis can provide meaningful relief for some people, including those undergoing cancer treatment or who have chronic pain. But there is very little consensus on appropriate medical uses, dosing and long-term effects, particularly as products vary widely in potency.

“If there’s no standardized testing of products, or if there’s no enforcement of potency limits, then we might be putting people at more risk,” said Dr. Smita Das, an adult addiction psychiatrist and a clinical professor at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at awatford@stateline.org.

The family of Donald Maier settled a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Department of Corrections for $3.75 million, the plaintiffs’ lawyer announced Thursday.

In 2024, Maier died at the troubled Waupun Correctional Institution of malnutrition and dehydration. Former Waupun warden Randall Hepp and six members of his staff were charged in Maier’s death. Maier had been in the restrictive housing unit, also referred to as solitary confinement. His death was ruled a homicide. 

“It wasn’t just Don Maier’s death that was a horrific tragedy,” Jeff Scott Olson, attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a press release emailed to the Wisconsin Examiner. “It was the last few days of his life, when his grip on reality drained away to the point that he was unable to communicate his needs, and his life became a living hell.”

Review of camera footage and medical records showed that security staff told a nurse of a concern about Maier not eating food for a couple of days, drinking sewage water and playing in the toilet, and she did not follow the procedure of a hunger strike, according to a criminal complaint filed in 2024. 

“Over the course of those days, dozens of people whose job it was to care for Don Maier walked by his cell, and not one of them so much as opened the door to his cell to check on him as he was lying unresponsive on the floor,” Olson said.

The nurse, Jessica Hosfelt, was charged with neglecting an incarcerated person and could receive up to three and a half years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000. A telephone scheduling conference in her case is scheduled for July 2. 

Charges in the case against two Waupun employees were dropped, and three others pleaded no contest to lesser charges. Hepp, the former warden, also pleaded no contest and was fined $500. 

According to the criminal complaint, Maier’s inability to speak coherently to articulate his medical needs was likely a factor in why he didn’t get needed medical and psychological intervention. 

He either “refused or was not provided medication for any of his known medical and psychological issues” during his time in solitary confinement — except for one instance when, the complaint states, it’s not known whether he actually took the medication he was given. 

Olson blames Act 10 for staffing problems

The Maier family carried out “extensive investigation” through their lawyers, said Olson, who cast blame on Act 10, passed in 2011 under then-Gov. Scott Walker. The law removed most collective bargaining and union rights from most Wisconsin public employees, including correctional employees. 

Olson said investigation into what went wrong at the prison showed that  problems of understaffing and low staff morale in the Wisconsin prison system were directly linked to the changes implemented by Act 10.

 Olson blamed inaction by the state Legislature in the 15 years since the law took effect for the deterioration of the correctional system’s physical facilities and working conditions. A “very predictable effect” has been that even as more people are hired to work in the prisons, it’s been impossible to attract enough applicants, he said.

“This has hurt both prison inmates and prison employees, and without serious reform at the legislative level to take the pressure off, tragedies like the death of Don Maier will continue to be inevitable,” Olson said. 

Across the department’s adult prisons, the DOC’s most recent report shows a vacancy rate of 14.1% for correctional officers and sergeants. That rate is much higher in some facilities — for example, it’s 26.5% at the Waupun prison and 40.8% at Green Bay Correctional Institution — despite pay raises that took effect in October 2023.

Department of Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy told WBAY last month that while the department tries to avoid forced overtime, it hasn’t eliminated the practice entirely. 

“We have a lot of protections in place for folks so they’re not ordered [to work overtime] too much, and we try to observe those as much as we can, we try to observe seniority and things like that,” Hoy said. “But yeah, there is forced overtime that will happen.”

Olson calls for reform 

Olson called the death “completely preventable” and said it highlights “the urgent need for prison reform, a focus on humane and respectful treatment for all residents of Wisconsin’s correctional facilities, and accountability within the corrections system.” 

The release said the family hopes the case will lead to better treatment of people in prison “so that obvious signs of distress are no longer ignored and that ongoing reforms will be put into place by the State of Wisconsin.”  

In February, a judge stayed proceedings in the family’s lawsuit at the request of the family and the DOC while they engaged in mediation, court records show. That mediation ultimately led to the settlement announced Thursday. 

Under the settlement agreement that Olson furnished, the state will pay $3.75 million, $2 million of that by June 30 and the remaining $1.75 million by July 31. All claims in the case will be dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be reopened.

The Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

In Olson’s press release, Maier’s family expressed appreciation to the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office for an “extremely thorough and detailed” investigation into the causes of his death. Asked for comment on the release, Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt responded over email. 

 “I think I will decline [a] statement and let their statement about us stand as is, given this was civil litigation and I’m not sure if there are still other pending litigations,” Schmidt said.

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Controversy over Flock license plate reading cameras has rippled across Wisconsin, causing people to fill public hearings as some regions remove the cameras, and others overhaul auditing and oversight. Activists, elected officials and police departments are navigating disagreements over privacy, safety, freedom and the facts about the surveillance network.  

Communities including Dane County, Verona, Monona, Fitchburg, Appleton, Oshkosh and Sturgeon Bay are dropping contracts with the multi-billion company Flock Safety because of heightened awareness and public anxiety over surveillance. 

Officers and deputies from three different agencies and three separate counties stand accused of misusing Flock cameras, which compile images of vehicles and their license plates into a database which can be searched by police. When the Examiner reviewed five months of Flock data last year, it contained many thousands of searches conducted by 221 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies.

All three officers are accused of tracking their romantic partners, with officers Josue Ayala of Milwaukee and Cristian Morales of Menasha facing charges for which they have upcoming court appearances. Ayala is scheduled for sentencing in June and Morales has a jury trial in July. Kenosha County Deputy Frank McGrath was not charged for misconduct over his use of Flock to track another deputy he was dating and a John Doe petition seeking charges in the case has been sealed by a judge, according to court records.

“It’s powerful technology,” Heba Mohammad, an organizer with Milwaukee4Palestine — one of the local groups pushing against Flock cameras — told the Examiner.  

Milwaukee4Palestine has focused on police surveillance as cameras, automatic license plate readers like Flock, and facial recognition technology and drones came to Milwaukee. “As Palestinians, we know what that is a signal of,” said Mohammad, pointing out that similar surveillance tested on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank has been adopted by U.S. law enforcement agencies. “The road to fascism is paved with well-intentioned surveillance technology.”

Milwaukee4Palestine organized to oppose facial recognition technology and then Flock. “We know this is what is next,” said Mohammad. “We’ve seen how surveillance can be used to oppress people.”

Although MPD stands by its use of Flock, the department has also been forced to revamp its auditing procedures. Over the last couple of months, the department has limited the number of officers who have access to Flock. James Lewis, risk manager for MPD, told the Wisconsin Examiner that access was restricted to an “as needed basis,” and that requests need to go through the chain of command, creating more of a paper trail when Flock is used. 

While some units or bureaus investigating serious crimes had clearer needs for Flock, “in patrol, we wanted to make sure that the officers who had it really had the need to have this software,” said Lewis. MPD is also using audit data to flag “outlier” data that indicate questionable Flock uses, such as an officer searching the same vehicle multiple times over a short period, or not attaching case numbers to searches. MPD shares its Flock network with state partners, but not with federal agencies. 

Nevertheless, community members have expressed a lack of confidence and trust in MPD surveillance, especially after the passage of Act 12, which stripped some of the Fire and Police Commission’s oversight powers in exchange for allowing Milwaukee to adopt a sales tax. 

“We are of the position that the risks far outweigh the benefits of this technology and again, particularly with a police force like the Milwaukee Police Department that has been granted a lot of impunity through Act 12 [and has] basically no accountability,” said Mohammad. “And they are demonstrating time and time again that they don’t care what the community thinks.”

Lewis said that the department is trying to nail down exactly how Flock affects the community. “I think a lot of what we’ve seen through public comment, through the commissioners’ comments, through news media coverage for this is, ‘Hey this is this big data surveillance network and it’s got a lot of these pitfalls in it,” said Lewis. “But I think the other piece of it that we’re really trying to get our hands on is how is this making police work more efficient? Is it driving public safety outcomes? Are we getting what we want out of it and through audit, we’re trying to tell those stories as well.” 

Lewis said MPD is working on answering some of those questions, especially the question of whether there is a return on investment in terms of public safety. “If there is outlier data generated, I want to know not just compliance or not, but also what did the city get out of this? Is it a safer place because of this?” Lewis said that MPD has chosen to overhaul its auditing practices on its own in a tailor-made fashion, rather than waiting on Flock Safety to develop a fix. 

The department highlighted 24 different situations where Flock was used, including felony firearms investigations, parole violations, narcotics trafficking, homicide, material witnesses needed at criminal trials, stolen vehicles, overdose death investigations, sexual assault, shootings and armed robberies. In one of the examples involving theft, MPD specified in an email that “Flock was used to develop patterns of movement in the suspect vehicle” to determine whether it was related to other thefts. 

Balancing tracking, privacy, and public safety

The extent to which Flock can track and surveil people has been a source of tension at public meetings. In December, Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball and Chief Deputy Brain Barkow said that calling Flock a form of tracking is a misrepresentation. They argued that although Flock alerts officers that a vehicle has been sighted, they would still need to go to the area of the alert and search for the vehicle. In other words, Flock doesn’t see everything.

But the technology appears to have greater surveillance capabilities than some departments and even Flock itself have described.

The Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department has also said that Flock is “not used for general surveillance, traffic enforcement, or monitoring individuals not connected to an investigation.” However, the agency’s Flock data shows that officers entered “surveillance” and “traffic offense” as reasons for searching the camera network. 

Oshkosh officials voted to continue a Flock contract only to reverse course the next day, saying that they’d been misled by Flock representatives over the camera’s ability to produce heat maps visualizing where a vehicle has been. At a meeting in April, Oshkosh Police Chief Dean Smith told local elected officials that because of that “misrepresentation” he could “I can no longer recommend Flock.”

“I think it depends on how it’s used,” Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis told the Examiner. “I think if it’s misused, you can misuse this technology in a way that would allow you to track someone.” Yet, Davis feels that Flock can be an asset when used for legitimate criminal investigations. “I think people sometimes misunderstand how the technology works.” 

Davis concedes of Flock use that in some ways, “yeah, that’s kind of tracking someone. But I have a legitimate criminal predicate for doing so.” At the same time, he condemns the use of Flock for personal reasons, like spying on ex-wives or partners. “The government doesn’t get to do that,” said Davis. “That’s unlawful overreach into someone’s life because there’s no legitimate public safety reason for getting access to that data.”

Davis was hired at Green Bay in late 2021, when the city was experiencing a rise in gun violence. After deciding not to adopt gunshot detection tech, the city pivoted to automatic license plate readers. 

“At the time Flock was one of very few, if not the only company that had stationary license plate reader technology,” said Davis. “With gun crimes, the faster you can develop a suspect and make an arrest, the better, because there’s a retaliatory cycle that happens.” The department has been able to locate homicide suspects who fled to other states, hit-and-run suspects, and stolen vehicles using Flock. 

Davis said that “license plate reader technology has been a game changer for all of us. On the other hand, you still have to take people’s privacy concerns seriously.” He stressed that “anytime you’re collecting that much data about people as they just go about their daily business, you have to be really careful with how that’s used.” 

How Flock can be layered with other surveillance technologies also worry community members. In May, officers in Wauwatosa used Flock surveillance and a drone to track a robbery suspect.

The debate reminds Davis of the words of a mentor, that being a police chief is “the great balancing act of municipal government.” He added that, “I think it would be a mistake for us to not take people’s privacy concerns seriously in this conversation.”

As cases of misuse have popped up, the Green Bay Police Department has also tightened its use of Flock. They used their own audit to look for suspicious searches, and didn’t detect any instances of misuse. “We didn’t find any of that in our audit that we did, but it doesn’t hurt to ratchet it down as much as we can,” said Davis. “Because again, I understand, like you’re talking about people’s sensitive information. We have to be responsible with how we use that, and there have to be safeguards in place.” 

The department has also restricted which outside agencies can access its Flock network. While there was an initial belief that “the bigger the network, the more valuable the tool,” Davis said that Green Bay PD has “re-thought that over the last few weeks.” Now only agencies in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, eastern Wisconsin from Green Bay to Milwaukee, and the Chicagoland area (including Racine, Kenosha, and Cook counties along with some Chicago suburbs and a small portion of Indiana around the city of Gary) can search within Green Bay’s network. 

“We figure that makes more sense to have more of a rationale for why we share data,” said Davis. “Because I don’t have control over how those other agencies manage their employees. It’s not that I don’t trust them, but if they want that information then they can call us and they can explain what they’re working on, and we’ll see if we can help them.”

Green Bay PD is also utilizing a drop down menu with pre-designated options for using Flock, rather than allowing officers to type whatever they want. When the Examiner conducted its first analysis of Flock last year, there were several departments which used vague search terms, even just putting a dot or “.” as the reason for searching Flock. When the Examiner brought it to the Waukesha Police Department’s attention, the department said an officer was re-trained and counseled. 

Captain Dan Baumann of the Waukesha PD said in an email statement that since then, the department has “strengthened its oversight of Flock Safety by increasing formal audits from twice per year to monthly.” There are also random audits in addition to the mandatory audit, as well as an AI-powered Flock audit assistance tool to flag suspicious searches. The department’s standard operating procedure has also been adjusted. No further instances of vague labeling have arisen, and no discipline has been issued in connection to use of Flock. 

Baumann said Flock has assisted investigations such as in a vehicle break-in where leads were limited, and using Flock allowed investigators to identify a suspect’s vehicle and connect it to cases in Dane County. Flock was also used to locate someone involved in a shooting, and who pointed a gun during a road rage incident, Baumann said.

Communities waking up to surveillance risks

While it may be encouraging that departments are changing procedures and upping auditing, advocates still have  questions about whether it will  be enough. Jon McCray Jones, policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin, hopes that people “don’t miss the forest for the trees” by focusing solely on Flock, when other companies sell similar technology. 

“I don’t believe that law enforcement are just acting out of good faith with a lot of these regulatory changes and auditing changes to Flock,” McCray Jones told the Examiner. “I believe that it comes from sustained pressure started at the most local level from people understanding and realizing the dangers associated with all these cameras and automated license plate readers, and specifically Flock, who is the worst company out of all of them so far.” 

It all also ties back to a growing mistrust and fear over the federal government. Under President Donald Trump, federal immigration agents have flooded Democratic-led cities across the country, resulting in multiple shootings and deaths in Minnesota earlier this year. The Trump administration has also directed federal agencies to begin investigating left-wing groups it has accused of domestic terrorism. 

Mohammad said that the ICE surges really brought surveillance to the forefront when people began to see “ICE agents scanning people’s faces in different cities, and telling them that we have a database and we can recognize your name. Or pulling people’s license plates and figuring out what their names were so that they could harass them directly by name.” She added, “I think this political moment is also a moral and ethical one.” 

McCray Jones also said the issue of police surveillance has new urgency as communities are “being targeted and their neighbors being disappeared by the federal government.” ICE and other federal agencies have access to Flock either directly, or through assistance from local and state agencies which have contracts with the company. Public officials, under pressure from voters, are “jumping on board,” McCray Jones said, “and they’re feeling courageous and empowered to take on these surveillance systems.”

Public meetings about surveillance technology in Milwaukee are energized, Mohammad said. “I don’t want to say exciting because I think that really betrays the seriousness of the moment,” she said. “But there is that buzz that often happens when that room is full, or there was a time when they had to open the overflow room.” It’s shown Mohammad that “people care about this stuff and that’s why I think that it’s really incredible that even though the FPC doesn’t really have any teeth to its accountability anymore, we as residents are using as many avenues as are open to us to make our voices heard.” 

McCray Jones suggests that people care about Flock because “at its core, it’s one of the easiest surveillance technologies for people to understand.” He believes that people understand that “anyone who drives is impacted by this technology in a way that other surveillance technologies, say like ShotSpotters or Stingray…I think people have a harder time one: knowing how these technologies work but two: viewing themselves as potential victims.” 

He added that in several cases, including in Milwaukee, officers who misused the technology were caught by people using websites like HaveIBeenFlocked, not by the department. “So we don’t know how much these systems are being abused,” he said. “And I think elected officials should use these moments of high, intense scrutiny from the community and in the media, and having anecdotal stories of officers doing this right now, to really be courageous and take the lead to fight for more accountability measures before the public forgets about this story, and forgets about the danger that they are under due to law enforcement’s ability to track where you are at all times.”

Mohammad said that she and her allies are not quitting anytime soon. “We understand our position, we understand the risks here,” she told the Examiner. “And so we’re not going to back down. We do not want our communities to be surveilled. And we believe that public safety comes from investments in other areas, not in police surveillance.”

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Attorneys squared off in federal court again Wednesday over the fate of former Milwaukee judge Hannah Dugan, who was convicted of obstructing immigration agents when they went to her courtroom to arrest a man last year. What was initially set to be a sentencing hearing for Dugan was postponed, replaced by oral arguments on a motion from Dugan’s attorneys to overturn her conviction.

A  jury found Dugan had obstructed a “proceeding” when she allowed a man living in the U.S. without legal documentation and his attorney to exit out of the courtroom into a non-public hallway. Prosecutors argued her action was to avoid immigration agents who waited in the hallway. 

Dugan’s attorneys argued that a recent appeals court ruling held that federal immigration enforcement actions are not “pending proceedings.” As a result, the attorneys argued Wednesday, improper instructions were given to the jury by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman during the high-profile trial in December. 

Prosecutors countered that the jury instructions were correct, and that the case Dugan’s lawyers cited does not apply to Dugan. 

Adelman now must consider whether to rely on the original guilty verdict, or to overturn the jury’s decision. Adelman denied the defense’s request for a new trial or for Dugan to be acquitted in April, WPR reported. 

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A Winnebago County judge has sentenced a former prison guard to two years in prison for sexually assaulting an incarcerated man at a state prison in Oshkosh. 

Judge John Jorgensen sentenced Brandon Jeanpierre to two years of prison and five years of supervision in the community on April 9, as well as sex offender registration. 

The victim reported that Jeanpierre fondled him in his cell and performed oral sex on him in a laundry room at the prison, according to records obtained from the Winnebago County District Attorney’s office. 

According to police records, the victim, whom the Examiner is not naming because he is a victim of sexual assault, said that “although he did not verbally tell the CO to stop or physically push him off, this was not consensual and he simply went along with it because he did not know what else to do.” He said he was frozen and that “nothing like this has ever happened to him.”

Describing a conversation with a police officer, the victim told the Examiner that one of the officer’s first questions was, “Why didn’t you do anything to stop it?” That angered him, and he felt that she was shaming him. He spoke positively of his experience with a different officer, a detective who put him at ease. 

“When you’re incarcerated, what they say is law,” the victim said. “When they tell you to do something, you do it. If not, you take the risk of going to solitary confinement, or you never know.”

The victim said he doesn’t know what he could have done to prevent retaliation for not complying, such as Jeanpierre making an accusation against him. He also said he had his girlfriend call the police because he didn’t have the confidence that the Department of Corrections would do the right thing. 

In August, Assistant District Attorney Amanda Nash gave notice that the prosecution planned to introduce DNA evidence to the jury at trial. That didn’t happen, as Jeanpierre took a plea deal instead of going to trial. 

A police report says the laboratory report is confidential, but a summary of the report implies that DNA swabbed from Jeanpierre’s mouth was linked to DNA swabbed from the victim’s penis. It states that the finding in the lab report “provides a very strong support for inclusion” in the case.

By reviewing video surveillance, prison staff saw that the two men were in the laundry room together on three different occasions, according to a police report. The victim told the Examiner that the other two times in the laundry room involved Jeanpierre touching him. 

A member of the prison staff said that they were in the laundry room for a matter of seconds, with the longest period being about 30-40 seconds, according to the prosecution’s criminal complaint. The complaint says the video did not show what happened inside the room. 

The staff person who reported it “noted that it was very unusual” for an officer to go into a laundry room with the lights out for any amount of time with an incarcerated person. 

The Examiner got in touch with the victim, who was released from prison earlier this year, through his attorney, Lonnie Story. Story gave the Examiner a copy of a letter dated April 22, which he said he sent to the state. In it, Story says his client demands $5 million to settle the case without a lawsuit, and offers to negotiate, asking the state to respond within 30 days. Story told the Examiner on May 19 that he has not received a response. 

If the state does not respond “appropriately,” Story told the Examiner, he expects to bring federal civil rights claims based on the sexual abuse, as well as claims concerning the state’s response to his client’s report of sexual abuse.

Story is still in the process of gathering records, but said the case appears to involve both abuse and “substantial questions” about the response after the victim reported it.

Prosecutor asked for ‘strong message’

Jeanpierre wasn’t physically violent, but his ability to punish a prisoner who did not comply with his demands created a serious power imbalance, and  “loss of freedom can be a far more significant threat than physical force,” Nash said. 

She recommended he spend five years imprisoned and five years on supervision in the community, the maximum amount of time for a third-degree sexual assault. 

The victim thought Jeanpierre might be able to do something that would affect his release date, Nash said. She added that, although he was afraid, he came forward and made sure Jeanpierre couldn’t use his position to violate and harm others. 

“To take a position of trust granted to the defendant by the State and use it to sexually assault someone is simply unacceptable,” Nash said. “There needs to be a strong message against this type of conduct.” 

Nash noted that a more severe second-degree charge was read into the case. Jeanpierre wasn’t found guilty of that charge, but Jorgensen was able to consider it when sentencing him for the third-degree charge. 

In a notice to the court in December, Nash said Jeanpierre’s plea deal reflected his willingness to take responsibility for his actions and avoided the need for his victim to go through the stress of testifying at trial. 

Mentally and emotionally, the victim has suffered “immeasurable pain,” he  wrote in a statement to the court. 

“Being taken advantage [of] by someone who was supposed to protect me has caused me to regress to when I was taken advantage of as a child,” he wrote. “The sadness, anger, depression, [sleepless] nights and thoughts of self harm are something I worked years to fight through only to relive it all as a middle aged man. [It] is something that can never be healed.” 

Defense, DOC recommended 90 days in jail 

At the sentencing hearing, defense attorney Scott Ceman said he agreed with the Department of Corrections’ recommendation for Jeanpierre’s sentence. 

When Jeanpierre was found guilty in January, Jorgensen ordered a pre-sentence investigation to help him decide what Jeanpierre’s sentence should be. Jorgensen explained to Jeanpierre that a probation agent was going to prepare a report on him, including his background and the facts of the case. The investigation is confidential and so could not be reviewed by the Examiner.

However, Jorgensen referred to a DOC recommendation during the sentencing hearing, saying that he recognized “the Department of Corrections recommendation of straight probation, 90 days jail.” 

He said he did not think that addressed the seriousness of Jeanpierre’s offense. 

Ceman said he joined the department’s request and asked for “one to two years initial confinement, [and] three to four years extended supervision [in the community] imposed but stayed.” 

In a stayed sentence, a convicted person is placed on probation in the community. If Jorgensen had sided with Ceman, Jeanpierre wouldn’t have had to serve prison time unless he violated the conditions of his probation. 

Ceman asked for Jeanpierre to receive 90 days in jail and three to four years of supervision in the community, as long as he didn’t violate his probation. 

Jorgensen disagreed, saying that if Jeanpierre did not go to prison, “it could send the wrong message to other guards as well as other inmates that they are at the peril of the decisions of the guards, and there will be no ramifications or [no] serious ramifications if they are violated.”

Nash and Ceman also had different views on whether Jeanpierre regretted his actions. Ceman said that Jeanpierre regrets his conduct and has accepted responsibility for it. 

At one point in the sentencing hearing, Nash expressed concern about the pre-sentence investigation’s recommendation. 

According to Nash, the agent who conducted the investigation noted that Jeanpierre was “minimizing or refusing to accept responsibility” but recommended that he receive probation. Nash had concerns that Jeanpierre “views this as something that was OK or something that the victim was a part of.” 

“The victim had no say, he had no control over his own life, and he was sexually assaulted by someone who could take so much from him,” Nash said. 

According to court documents filed April 9, Jeanpierre is planning to seek post-conviction relief. It’s unclear what grounds he plans to use for that challenge. He declined to speak during the sentencing hearing, and did not respond when the Examiner reached out to him in prison through the messaging app GettingOut.

A search of online Wisconsin circuit court records turned up no prior criminal convictions for Jeanpierre. Online DOC records indicate he has been incarcerated at Dodge Correctional Institution since April 21. 

According to a notice from Nash to the court, the prosecution believed the victim was comfortable with the plea deal and the state’s recommendation for sentencing. 

The victim said he didn’t realize it would be “such a minimal sentence” and he wishes Jeanpierre had been given a longer sentence, but he’s trying to be able to move on from the situation. 

Defense arguments 

Jeanpierre’s attorney, Scott Ceman, appeared to question whether the victim had consented to the assault, arguing there wasn’t evidence of Jeanpierre threatening him.  He acknowledged that under the law, an incarcerated person cannot consent to sexual activity with a staff member.

Due to the authority staff members have over incarcerated people, incarcerated people can never truly consent to sexual activity with a staff member even if they agree, a Wisconsin Department of Corrections handbook states. It’s always illegal for a staff member to engage in  sexual activity with an incarcerated person. 

Ceman alleged at the sentencing hearing that as a prosecutor, he was a “strong advocate” for the position that the Department of Corrections does not adequately train its employees in the Prison Rape Elimination Act. (Ceman left the Winnebago County District Attorney’s Office in 2019 citing his dissatisfaction with the wages prosecutors receive). He claimed he asked Jeanpierre what PREA training he received and that it was “really nothing.” 

Ceman alleged this leads to “grooming-type behavior” by incarcerated people who then report they’ve been sexually assaulted and are moved to a better living area within the prison. Jeanpierre’s victim strongly disagrees with Ceman’s implication and told the Examiner that the attorney was engaging in victim blaming in front of the judge. 

He said he was previously incarcerated for 10 years and never accused anyone of sexual assault, and asked why he would do so when he was incarcerated a second time and serving a shorter sentence. The assault took place in October 2024, and he was released from prison earlier this year. Court records show none of his convictions were sexual in nature. 

The Department of Corrections did not respond to requests for comment from the Examiner. Its website states that the agency has zero tolerance for sexual abuse and sexual harassment. Department policy states that the DOC tracks such incidents, identifies core causes and takes corrective actions. 

The agency trains all employees, contractors and volunteers, and provides incarcerated people with a “comprehensive orientation” about their right to be free from sexual abuse, harassment and report-related retaliation, the policy states.

Employees receive training every two years and “refresher information” on non-training years, covering topics such as the dynamics of sexual abuse and sexual harassment behind bars, according to the policy. 

Victim describes multiple assaults 

The victim told the Examiner that prior to the events described in the prosecution’s criminal complaint, Jeanpierre initiated conversation with him, such as asking him about his family.

According to a police report, the victim believed that the first assault took place sometime after 8 p.m. in his cell. He only knew that people called the officer who assaulted him “Pierre.” 

He said that Jeanpierre said “let me see it” before reaching inside his cell from the doorway and grabbing his crotch. He believed Jeanpierre was drinking because his breath smelled like alcohol. 

Jeanpierre told him that Jeanpierre was going to be moving to a “Q unit,” he reported. He said Jeanpierre told him to make a request so he could also be moved there. 

He said he sent a piece of paper to get himself moved to Q unit through what the criminal complaint described as “some sort of inter-prison mail,” and Jeanpierre gave him a small piece of paper with a phone number on it. 

The victim said the piece of paper he had received from Jeanpierre had been thrown out, and that he had rewritten the number on another piece of paper, which he gave to another incarcerated man. A piece of paper found in that man’s room had the personal phone number that the prison had on file for Jeanpierre. 

The victim said he didn’t ask why the officer was asking him to move to that unit, and that, according to the report, he “minds his own business, that he wants to get out on time, doesn’t cause trouble and when a CO [correctional officer] asks him to do something, he just simply does it.” 

Some time between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., the victim said, Jeanpierre walked by him about two to three times and swiped the back of his hand near his crotch. 

He said that he was working on the janitorial staff that night, and around 10:30 or 11 p.m., Jeanpierre told him to come into the laundry room, where Jeanpierre pulled down the victim’s shorts and put his penis in his mouth without his consent, the victim said.  

He added that after he was assaulted in the laundry room, he went to his room and stayed there for the night. 

The Examiner reviewed records that give insight into the state’s investigation into the sexual assault, including the transcript of an interview on Nov. 22 with Eric Henslin, identified as an administrative captain at Oshkosh Correctional Institution. The victim said he obtained those records by requesting them from the Department of Corrections. 

A camera covers the area of the door that provides access to the laundry room, Henslin said. A window allows the camera to see inside, but the lights were off. After the allegation of sexual assault, a memo went out to direct staff that all lights would remain on in the laundry rooms, he said.

Chad Schepp, the interviewer and a corrections investigator for the DOC, asked Henslin about the victim’s allegation of smelling alcohol on Jeanpierre. Henslin said that if a supervisor doing roll call had any suspicion of Jeanpierre being under the influence of a mind-altering substance, it would be addressed. 

Incarcerated man tipped off Examiner

The Examiner learned about the prosecution of Jeanpierre from Jerry Wheeler, 60, who has spent the majority of his life since 2002 incarcerated and is currently at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution. 

The prosecution’s criminal complaint against Jeanpierre referenced an incarcerated man identified as “JLW.” Online court records from Wheeler’s past offenses state his name as “Jerry L. Wheeler.”  

The victim said he went to Wheeler for advice the morning after the assault, according to the prosecution’s criminal complaint. Wheeler said he didn’t really know the victim and had talked to him a couple of times since he’s been at the Oshkosh prison, the complaint states. 

Wheeler said the victim initially spoke hypothetically about how to report a sexual assault and what to do if he was afraid of retaliation, and that he later admitted he had been assaulted by a correctional officer the previous night, the complaint says. The victim told the Examiner that Wheeler convinced him to report the assault to the police. 

The DOC’s response so far 

Jeanpierre had been with the Department of Corrections for nine months before the incident, according to Ceman’s remarks at the sentencing hearing. A police report dated the day after the assault says that Jeanpierre was being placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. 

Jeanpierre resigned on Nov. 6, 2024, about a week after the assault, according to the records obtained by the victim. He did not respond to the DOC’s request to interview him.

A DOC report supplied by the victim states that the department did not interview the victim because of “the graphic nature of the incident,” concern about re-victimizing him and the fact that police already had a detailed statement. 

When the Examiner brought this up to the victim, he said he could sort of understand that but he wished someone from the DOC had asked him if he wanted to be interviewed. 

The victim said that after the assault, other incarcerated people started to hear about it, and not from him. Incarcerated people told him that correctional officers were talking about it. The victim said he went to security and reported concern for his safety. He was moved to a different institution. 

Henslin, the prison captain interviewed by the DOC, said that the victimwas moved from the Oshkosh prison to Redgranite Correctional Institution because of the allegation of sexual assault, according to records supplied by the victim. He was later transferred between multiple other prisons. 

The victim spoke positively of his experience with an advocate from a sexual assault services provider, but negatively of the DOC’s response to the assault. 

The victim said that “every time I went to a new institution, no one spoke to me… anytime I would ask about the investigation or ask about specific paperwork pertaining to the investigation, no one knew anything.” 

He said he was told staff would have to reach out to someone else and find out. Prison psychological services had to fact-check that he was telling the truth when he brought the assault up to them, he said. 

Department of Corrections policy states that the agency provides a coordinated victim-centered response to reports of sexual abuse and sexual harassment, including providing medical and mental health services to victims as appropriate while investigating all allegations. 

In the victim’s view, the DOC doesn’t have a great track record of being honest or caring for incarcerated people. 

“Victims cannot be silent,” he said. 

How frequently are sexual assaults reported in Wisconsin prisons? 

In 2024, Wisconsin’s adult prisons saw 27 substantiated claims of sexual abuse and 66 substantiated claims of sexual harassment, according to an annual report from the DOC. (2025 data is available on the department’s website, but not at the same level of detail as the 2024 report.)

Most of the substantiated allegations for 2024 involved an incarcerated person abusing or harassing another incarcerated person. Six substantiated allegations involved a staff member, contractor or volunteer abusing or harassing an incarcerated person.

Adult prisons saw 186 unsubstantiated claims of sexual abuse and 241 unsubstantiated claims of sexual harassment in 2024. Most involved incarcerated people allegedly abusing or harassing other incarcerated people. 

Ninety-eight claims were determined to be unfounded, and over a third of those claims were made against staff, contractors or volunteers. 

The report’s category for a staff member sexually abusing or harassing an incarcerated person is broader than the category for sexual abuse by an incarcerated person. For example, if an incarcerated person consents to sexual contact with a staff member, it is categorized as sexual abuse. That’s not the case for sexual contact between two willing incarcerated people. 

Jeanpierre’s conviction wasn’t the first of its kind in Wisconsin. In 2018, former correctional officer Alex Wouts was sentenced to 35 years in prison for sexually assaulting several incarcerated people, the Associated Press reported. Wouts threatened discipline and offered privileges to victims. 

The DOC’s 2024 report included a list of specific steps the department took in 2024 to safeguard against sexual abuse, which included making physical changes within facilities and holding various staff trainings. 

National PREA standards require audits for covered facilities at least once during each three-year cycle. In 2023, an auditor with the Colorado Department of Corrections audited the Oshkosh prison and reported it was in compliance with standards. 

As for Department of Corrections staff, public DOC data reports five incidents in 2025 in which staff experienced unwanted sexual contact from incarcerated people. 

Awaiting more records

On April 30, the Examiner made a public records request to the Department of Corrections for Jeanpierre’s disciplinary records. 

On May 1, the Examiner made a public records request to the Oshkosh Police Department for the final case report for the case that led to the prosecution of Jeanpierre. The department denied the request, citing an ongoing investigation. 

A few days after the Examiner took the matter to Winnebago County District Attorney Eric Sparr,  citing state public records law and the fact that Jeanpierre had already been convicted, Sparr said that he understood the matter to be resolved and that the department should be fulfilling the request. 

The Examiner has received at least some of the police reports in the case through a request to Sparr’s office, but has not yet received all records requested from the Oshkosh Police Department. 

On May 5, a police records clerk told the Examiner that she is unsure what was still being investigated, and that the report has been approved to be sent. Using language from state public records law, she said the Examiner would receive the report as soon as practicable and without delay. 

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The U.S. Department of Justice’s recent decision to downgrade the drug classification for medical cannabis will help medical marijuana businesses. Companies will be able to claim some federal tax benefits. New research can start up at state universities.

But the broader divide between federal and state marijuana policy remains largely intact, leaving states to navigate a fragmented and still-evolving cannabis landscape with few clear answers about what comes next.

The unprecedented change in April reclassifying medical marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III means the federal government is acknowledging an accepted healthcare use for cannabis. Recreational marijuana, however, remains a Schedule I drug under federal policy, even though 24 states and the District of Columbia allow recreational cannabis in various forms, from dried flower to vaping oils to processed gummy candies.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is set to hold its first hearing at the end of June on the possible de-scheduling of marijuana broadly, which would include recreational or adult-use cannabis.

Until then, some experts say little is expected to change for the more than half of states with medical or recreational marijuana programs.

“This change is sort of catching up to what states are already doing,” said Katharine Neill Harris, a drug policy fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “In some ways the federal government is following the states on this issue.”

States have spent years building regulatory frameworks for medical and recreational marijuana programs — including licensing systems, tax structures, testing requirements and retail oversight.

Following the DEA’s announcement in April that it would reschedule medical cannabis, some state commissions acknowledged the decision but stressed that their laws have not changed and that they are awaiting further federal guidance.

In Nevada, for example, state cannabis officials released a statement noting that the rescheduling change allows medical cannabis licensees to register with the DEA, while also emphasizing that Nevada law still classifies non-medical marijuana as a Schedule I substance.

In mid-May, the California Department of Cannabis Control proposed emergency regulations that would allow businesses holding licenses for both medical and recreational marijuana to obtain separate licenses. The change could position cannabis businesses to take advantage of potential benefits tied to the rescheduling of medical marijuana.

Many of the day-to-day functions of state cannabis programs are expected to remain intact, according to experts.

“Right now, nothing would have to change for states because we don’t know what the federal regulations are going to look like for managing medical cannabis,” said Heather Trela, the director of operations and a fellow at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a nonpartisan public policy think tank.

“Everyone’s kind of figuring it out right now, and we don’t have all the details, so it’s hard for states,” she said.

State cannabis regulators and officials in several states, including Oklahoma, Vermont and Washington, told Stateline they are waiting for guidance from the DEA and other federal agencies before determining whether businesses will be required to register with the DEA, qualify for federal tax relief or face new compliance requirements, and whether states may need to revise their own cannabis laws.

“None of us really can effectively advise our licensees, which is just incredibly frustrating, especially with a ticking clock,” said James Pepper, the chair of the Vermont Cannabis Control Board, which regulates the state’s medical and adult-use market.

In the coming months, other federal agencies may issue guidance on how rescheduling will affect existing rules, according to policy experts. The U.S. Department of Transportation said in December that drug testing and licensing standards will not change, and TSA rules still prohibit carrying marijuana on flights. Financial guidance from the IRS and the Treasury Department also are still pending.

‘Taxed like a normal business’

But some marijuana policy experts and industry leaders say the federal shift could bring major changes to cannabis business operations and scientific research.

Cannabis businesses have long been blocked from taking certain federal tax deductions because marijuana was classified as a Schedule I substance. Some industry leaders say moving medical cannabis to Schedule III could ease some of those constraints.

“Going forward, we can be treated and taxed like a normal business, which ultimately helps the bottom line and allows us to reinvest more meaningfully in the states where we operate,” said Lauren Niehaus, the executive director of government relations at Trulieve Cannabis Corp., one of the largest cannabis companies in the country. Trulieve, based in Florida, operates dispensaries in eight states.

The tax policy change is a central issue for cannabis operators across the board, from small businesses to large multistate companies, Niehaus said.

Ryan Hunter, the chief revenue officer of Spherex Labs, said rescheduling changes could shift investor and lender attitudes toward the cannabis industry, with some capital partners becoming more willing to invest.

But Hunter said the latest federal change also creates new uncertainty for companies operating in both medical and recreational markets, including Spherex Labs, which operates in Colorado.

“Our business is still very much in wait-and-see mode,” Hunter said. “There are a lot of positive gains here, but really more than anything, a lot more confusion.”

The federal government has effectively created different legal frameworks for the same substance, he added. Medical cannabis is now federally recognized, while recreational marijuana and its consumers remain in conflict with federal law.

The rescheduling change also carries federal registration requirements under the Controlled Substances Act, a law that would require medical cannabis businesses to register with the DEA, pay annual fees, and comply with detailed reporting, inventory and security rules that may overlap or conflict with existing state systems.

Spherex Labs has chosen not to register at this time, Hunter said, opting to wait for further federal guidance.

Earlier this month, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control sent a letter to licensed medical cannabis businesses encouraging them to register with the DEA and warning of possible sanctions, including revocation of their state licenses, for failing to comply with federal requirements.

But the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, which oversees cannabis licensing and regulation in the state, told Stateline the letter came as a surprise and that it remains unclear whether federal officials actually intend to require DEA registration for medical operators.

Other states could adopt similar federal registration requirements, according to Trela, of the Rockefeller Institute of Government.

Cannabis research

Some researchers and experts say rescheduling marijuana could reduce longstanding barriers to studying its medical use, safety and long-term health effects.

Current research on marijuana’s effects falls short of what is needed to fully understand cannabis as a medical treatment, according to Chad Johnson, an assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Johnson also is the director of the university’s medical cannabis graduate studies program.

“We really do need those randomized trials to really say that cannabis is effective for treating a particular condition,” Johnson said.

There are still major gaps in cannabis research, he said, including how it is formulated and delivered, such as whether methods beyond smoking, vaping or edibles may be more effective, and how to determine appropriate dosing for specific medical conditions.

Johnson added that rescheduling could allow academic institutions to study products already being sold in their respective states, making research more closely aligned with what consumers are actually using, rather than relying on cannabis sourced through federally authorized suppliers.

Some public health and addiction experts say the federal shift should not be interpreted as a signal that cannabis is risk-free, pointing to ongoing concerns about cannabis use disorders, dependency and effects on mental health.

“It’s going to reduce the public’s perception of risk of cannabis, and right now, I don’t think the public is aware of the high potency that cannabis has,” said Dr. Alta DeRoo, the chief medical officer of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, one of the largest nonprofit treatment providers for addiction and mental health. DeRoo also is a board-certified addiction medicine physician and OB-GYN.

Some opponents of the change also argue it is driven as much by political and economic pressure from the cannabis industry as by evolving science.

“The issue is not research. The issue is money, tax breaks for an industry, and that’s really what the whole effort to relax marijuana laws is about,” said Kevin Sabet, a former drug policy adviser to three presidential administrations and the president and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a nonprofit that opposes legalizing marijuana.

What’s next

New federal changes also could face court challenges or be reversed by a future administration, according to some cannabis policy experts.

Last week, the attorneys general of Indiana, Louisiana and Nebraska filed a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, arguing that the Justice Department’s rescheduling order violates federal administrative law. Louisiana and Nebraska have medical-only cannabis programs, while Indiana does not have a cannabis program at all.

Smart Approaches to Marijuana and the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association filed a similar lawsuit earlier this month, arguing that the administration exceeded its authority under the Controlled Substances Act.

At the same time, the White House’s latest National Drug Control Strategy document also raised concerns about high-potency marijuana and warned that international cartels and organized crime groups continue to exploit state cannabis legalization laws.

Aside from criminal justice implications, federal restrictions have limited cannabis businesses’ access to banking, investment and long-term planning, even as state markets have expanded into a multibillion-dollar industry.

Banks have largely avoided working with cannabis businesses because marijuana remains broadly illegal under federal law, which exposes financial institutions to potential regulatory penalties and compliance risks even in states where cannabis is legal.

Several bills have been introduced in Congress that would provide protections for banks offering services to cannabis businesses, but no legislation has been adopted.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at awatford@stateline.org.

State Rep. Jim Piwowarczyk (R-Hubertus) and 39 other Republican legislators (33 from the Assembly and 6 from the Senate) sent a letter to Gov. Tony Evers Tuesday requesting that he suspend his new effort to process commutations (a reduction or a modification of a criminal sentence) out of concern over “serious consequences it is having on victims, law enforcement, families and public confidence in Wisconsin’s justice system.”

On April 3, Evers announced, under his executive authority to grant clemency (pardons, reprieves, and commutations), that he would make commutations available again in the state after 25 years since the last commutation had been issued.

A commutation doesn’t automatically mean a person in prison will be released. It could mean the incarcerated portion of the sentence is shortened, but the applicant still has prison time to complete, as well as fulfilling extended supervision. 

On April 3, Evers issued two executive orders: Executive Order 287, creating the Governor’s Commutation Advisory Board and Executive Order 288, creating a Juvenile Life Sentence Process.

Juvenile commutation is only available to those who were 19 years of age or younger at the time of their conviction. The juvenile commutation is also restricted to those who were sentenced as adults and received a life sentence or at least 39 years of incarceration.

The eligibility requirements for the two commutation applications share five specific conditions:

1. Applicants must currently be incarcerated in a correctional institution for a Wisconsin conviction with more than one year of the incarceration term remaining.
2. They must have served at least half of their incarceration term or at least 20 years of a life sentence.
3. They must not have any unresolved criminal charges or outstanding warrants in any jurisdiction.
4. There cannot be any incidents of violent misconduct within the last five years of current incarceration.
5. The commutation is not for any of the following offenses: sexual assault, physical abuse of a child, trafficking of a child, incest, and soliciting a child for prostitution.

Commutation applications have been offered online, and the first commutation hearings are expected to be held in June.

Soon after Evers announced he would be offering commutations, Republican legislators began expressing their opposition.

One of their criticisms is that by making the commutation process widely available, it is disruptive to the intent of truth-in-sentencing laws passed in the late 1990s, early 2000s, which require people convicted of serious crimes  to serve the totality of a prison sentence, including years in incarceration and extended supervision, without the possibility of a parole board shortening that sentence.

“For decades, Wisconsin maintained a commonsense approach that respected the finality of sentencing decisions and the voices of victims,” Piwowarczyk wrote in a press release announcing the letter to Evers. “There can be no justification for commuting the sentences of convicted murderers who shattered families and communities. Any commutation process must exclude homicide offenders and ensure victims have a real voice before any action is taken.”

However, under the executive authority in the state constitution, a governor has broad power to offer commutations. 

The Republicans’ letter highlights the case of Ted Oswald, who was convicted of murdering Waukesha Police Captain James Lutz.

The letter to Evers requests that no applicant who has murdered a law enforcement officer be given a commutation, and in Piwowarczyk’s press release, he broadens that request to remove “all homicide offenders from eligibility for commutation consideration.”

The letter also contends that families and victims are learning about applications  for commutation via social media, rather than through a reliable victim notification process.

“We also ask you to strengthen victim notification requirements, ensure victims and their families have a voice in the process, and require full notification to district attorneys and sentencing judges whenever commutation applications are filed,”  the letter states.

In Piwowarczyk’s press release, he specifically requests “creating a robust public notification system and online tracking log for commutation applicants,” and offering notification to victims at least 90 days out, and guaranteeing victims and families are heard at hearings.

On Gov. Evers’ commutation webpage, in answer to the question “Will the victim have a say in my application?” the reply is,  “Yes, the perspectives and opinions of victims will be an important consideration for the Commutations Advisory Board.”

Commutation applicants are also required to notify circuit court and the district attorneys’ offices of their petitions for early release. 

In his April 3 press release, Evers defended commutation as promoting “rehabilitation by providing a system that rewards the positive efforts of incarcerated individuals who demonstrate personal growth and a commitment to change with the possibility of a second chance to contribute to society, become productive members of their communities, make amends and improve their lives and those of the people around them.”

The Governor also said he was offering commutations to “build upon” his efforts to reform Wisconsin’s justice system in the absence of efforts by the  Wisconsin  Legislature to reform the state’s criminal justice system.

The Wisconsin prison population is at a historic high, exceeding 23,000. Evers promised at the beginning of his administration in 2019 to cut the incarcerated population in half, but the population has floated around 23,000 without significant change.

Criminal justice advocates have pressured Evers to use his executive authority to offer commutations to lower the prison population, especially for those who have been in prison for years and have matured and become responsible individuals capable of living in society

Left out of much of the criticism of Evers’ commutation plan is the fact that an application doesn’t guarantee success – it just offers, for those who are qualified, a chance to apply for a commutation. Applicants who are rejected will have to wait a year to apply again.

The Wisconsin Examiner reached out to the governor’s office for a response to the letter, but did not receive a response Wednesday.

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Democratic U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin, Bernie Sanders, and Chris Van Hollen have sent a joint letter to the secretary of  the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), condemning the arrest and detention of Salah Sarsour, the president of Milwaukee’s Islamic Society, and charging that Sarsour has received inadequate medical care Sarsour at an Indiana immigration detention center where he’s being held. 

Sarsour has been detained since late March.  His family and supporters say that Sarsour, a man of Palestinian descent, was targeted for his criticism of the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians and the mass slaughter in Gaza. DHS has accused the father and business owner of lying on his green card application more than 30 years ago. 

The federal government has called Sarsour a terrorist who was detained as a teenager for attempting to possess weapons or ammunition. As a boy Sarsour was detained by Israeli forces in the West Bank, where torture and abuse of Palestinian prisoners have been reported for decades, something Sarsour said had happened to him as well. 

In their letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Baldwin, Sanders, and Van Hollen called Sarsour a business owner, father, grandfather and a “respected leader in the Milwaukee community.” He has lived in the United States as a legal permanent resident since 1993 and has not acquired a criminal record in that time. 

“We are deeply concerned that Mr. Sarsour was targeted in retaliation for his activism,” the senators wrote. “Through his work with the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and American Muslims for Palestine, Mr. Sarsour has spoken out passionately against the war in Gaza and on issues impacting the Islamic Society. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees everyone in our country, including lawful permanent residents, the right to speak freely without fear of retribution from the government.”

The senators added that they are concerned about Sarour’s health in detention. “Those in federal custody must be treated humanely and receive the level of care required,” the senators wrote. “Mr. Sarsour is a diabetic and we are concerned that he does not have appropriate access to healthcare, medical supplies, and a healthy diet required to properly manage that chronic condition, including by regularly testing blood glucose.” 

Sarsour has also not been provided “reasonable religious accommodations, such as a prayer mat,” the senators wrote. “He had been using a facility-issued bath towel to perform his prayers, but this was recently confiscated without explanation and Mr. Sarsour has been forced to pray on the facility’s barren floors. This treatment is unacceptable.”

Baldwin, Sanders, and Van Hollen demanded answers to several questions by May 31. They asked DHS to provide documentation that immigration officers relied on when they decided to arrest Sarsour and requested communications with the White House or Office of Budget and Management regarding Sarsour’s detention. 

They also asked whether Sarsour has access to proper healthcare and nutrition, what protocols immigration detention centers have regarding detainees with hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia, whether those protocols are being followed with Sarsour, and what protocols exist for providing detainees with reasonable religious accommodations. 

“Our nation’s founders realized that democracy cannot exist in a nation with a government that restricts or limits the speech and expression of its people,” they wrote. “The Constitution protects an individual’s right to express their political views and have their voice heard. We condemn any attempts by this Administration to use the power of the United States government to unfairly target and punish people for simply disagreeing with it.”

Members of Congress, including U.S. Reps. Gwen Moore, Mark Pocan, Greg Cesar of Texas, and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, have also called for Sarsour’s release, joining a list of supporters   including Gov. Tony Evers, Milwaukee elected leaders, former elected officials  and numerous local activist and advocacy groups. 

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U.S. violent crime fell sharply in 2025, according to preliminary federal data, with murders dropping an estimated 18.1% — a decline that could push the national homicide rate to its lowest level on record if the figures hold.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program reported that overall violent crime fell an estimated 9.3% compared with 2024, alongside broad decreases across major categories. Robbery dropped 18.5%, aggravated assault fell 7.2% and reported rapes declined 7.6%. Property crime was down an estimated 12.4%.

The FBI said the estimates, released last week, are based on data submitted by more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies covering about 96% of the U.S. population. 

Participation in the FBI’s crime data collection is voluntary for law enforcement agencies. The crime data itself only reflects crimes reported to police.

More than 15,000 agencies reported through the National Incident-Based Reporting System, which now covers nearly 90% of the population, according to the FBI. NIBRS, as the system is known, is the agency’s new, more detailed crime reporting system. It became the national standard in 2021.

The FBI’s early data aligns with projections from the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice, which in January forecasted that 2025 may have had the lowest homicide rate in more than a century.

Both violent and non-violent crime levels in most of the cities studied in the council’s analysis also were at or below pre-pandemic levels.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at awatford@stateline.org.

Conversations with survivors of sexual abuse left Missouri state Sen. Tracy McCreery wondering what could have prevented the harm, leading her to sponsor a bill that would require clergy and religious workers to report suspected child abuse or neglect.

Her bill would have forced ministers to report even if they learned of abuse during confession or another religious rite. She urges people to view the issue through the lens of child safety and not against religion.

“Children are just very vulnerable and it’s up to us as adults to not allow them to be harmed,” the Democrat told Stateline. “There shouldn’t be an exception for adults that know about something and just don’t report it.”

Her bill failed to advance as the Missouri legislative session drew to a close. Other state lawmakers across the country also are grappling with the question of who should be required to report suspected child abuse or neglect, known as “mandated reporters.”

Some legislators are weighing whether clergy should be included — and whether they should be forced to reveal information from confessions. Other lawmakers are wrestling with whether sports coaches, talent agents, camp leaders and other professions with access to children should be mandated reporters.

The religious freedom question played out most recently in Washington state. A Washington law enacted last year requires clergy to report suspected child abuse and neglect, even when they receive the information through confidential communication during a religious rite, such as confession. Catholic bishops and then Orthodox churches sued, saying it violated their First Amendment right to religious freedom. The U.S. Justice Department joined the lawsuit on the bishops’ side.

Confession is considered a sacred rite in the Catholic faith. Penitents confess their sins to a priest, who is forbidden by church law from revealing anything said. The Washington law “puts Roman Catholic priests to an impossible choice: violate 2,000 years of Church teaching and incur automatic excommunication or refuse to comply with Washington law and be subject to imprisonment, fine, and civil liability,” the bishops’ suit said.

A federal judge blocked enforcement of that portion of the law, and the state eventually agreed to drop the obligation. Clergy remain mandated reporters, but state prosecutors do not enforce reporting requirements related to confession.

In New York, a pending bill would add any “clergy member or other minister of any religion” to the list of required reporters, similar to a Kansas bill that passed the state House but died in the Senate this session. Both bills would exempt information received through a confession.

South Dakota lawmakers also considered adding clergy to the state’s list of mandated reporters this year, with exemptions for confession, though that proposal failed in committee. Church opponents said requiring faith leaders to make “subjective” calls on whether difficult life circumstances or poverty amount to reportable abuse or neglect would interfere with the clergy-parishioner relationship, and run afoul of First Amendment protections, the South Dakota Searchlight reported.

A pending Vermont bill, however, aims to end the mandatory reporting exception for confession.

McCreery rejects the idea that an adult should be able to confess to abuse in a religious setting without prompting a report, and thinks there are loopholes in reporting laws that undermine child safety.

“That really repulses me,” she said. “Why are we not thinking about our obligations to protect the child?”

But Chris Motz, senior counsel with First Liberty Institute, which pursues religious freedom cases, said the Washington litigation should serve as a lesson to other states considering similar bills.

“The lesson for state legislators is going to be that they have to respect long-standing religious rights, while balancing the important interests in safeguarding children,” he said. “We don’t have to always see things as sort of a winner take all, this or that. We can do a little bit with both hands.”

Carrying the legal burden

The bills sometimes define “clergy” widely, including not only ordained leaders such as priests and rabbis, but also those who serve as spiritual leaders of any religious community, church or sect.

Michael W. Halcomb, an ordained minister and assistant professor at Montreat College in North Carolina, told Stateline that if abusers know clergy must report anything disclosed in counseling or confession, they may never seek help at all.

“If reporting is mandated, abusers will likely never come forward for help or counseling,” Halcomb said. “That means the abuse stays completely hidden no matter what happens.”

Halcomb said many pastors are not equipped to determine where “spiritual guidance ends and a formal criminal confession begins,” which could complicate broad reporting mandates.

“Whoever has the ability to isolate a child, in other words, should have to carry the legal burden to report.”

But Vermont Democratic state Rep. Esme Cole introduced a bill seeking to repeal the state’s clergy-confidentiality exception. Cole said the bill is not aimed at one denomination or only at what is said in confession. She said it is also about abuse known about by church leaders that is never reported; she wants such leaders to be required to report as well.

The issue is personal, Cole told Stateline. A close friend, she said, is an adult survivor of physical and emotional abuse that happened in a church setting when he was about 10. The priest accused of the abuse, she said, never faced discipline and was instead moved elsewhere.

Cole calls it the “pass the trash” loophole.

“When there’s bad behavior, and by bad behavior I mean real abuse committed by a member of the diocese they move them to the next church over or two churches over,” Cole said. “If we want to stop that kind of movement in its tracks, it needs to be reported.”

Cole’s proposal comes against the backdrop of a long history of clergy abuse allegations in Vermont’s only Catholic diocese. After the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2024, another 118 people submitted confidential claims, after previously settling 67 lawsuits for about $34.5 million, VTDigger reported.

Who else should report?

Other states are debating whether to add coaches and other professionals with access to children to mandated-reporter lists.

If the goal is protecting children, Halcomb said, states should look beyond churches and impose reporting duties on “anyone with unsupervised authority over minors,” including club sports coaches, private tutors and camp volunteers.

This month, Connecticut passed legislation requiring paid municipal youth camp directors, assistant directors and staff members age 21 or older to serve as mandated reporters.

Although the South Dakota clergy bill failed, the legislature did approve a separate measure requiring any “coach of a school activity” to be a mandated reporter. Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden signed it into law in March.

California expanded its definition of mandated reporters to explicitly include certain school volunteers, governing board members and private school employees as of July 1, 2026, and requires annual mandated-reporter training. The state also enacted a law last year that added talent agents, talent managers and talent coaches who work with minors.

Beth Sanborn, a retired Pennsylvania police officer, now leads other school resource officers in mandated-reporter training sessions as a Montgomery County School Safety Coordinator. She asks them to imagine being pressed to describe to a stranger their last sexual encounter.

The question elicits nervous giggles from flustered adult officers, she said. She then asks them to think of a young child who has been sexually abused by a relative, and how the fear and shame can be overwhelming enough for them to not seek help.

“What if you’re an 11-year-old kid and what if it was nonconsensual? What if it was your uncle?” Sanborn said. “Do you really want to share that with a stranger? It became a shared responsibility for us who are trained to recognize these signs.”

In Pennsylvania, Sanborn said she saw a complete shift in mandated reporting after 2012, when the state enacted a law that requires school employees and contractors with direct contact with children to receive training on recognizing and reporting child abuse. The laws were enacted in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State.

Sandusky, a former assistant football coach, was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing young boys. The scandal led to the dismissal of Joe Paterno, Penn State’s revered longtime football coach, who was criticized for not doing enough after learning of an allegation involving Sandusky as early as 1998.

Sanborn thinks some school officials, from teachers to officers, hesitate to report because of a common misconception they must prove abuse occurred. The point of mandated reporting, she said, is for adults to pass along a reasonable concern before a child is harmed.

“The school resource officer gets to see one facet of a kid’s behavior. The coach gets to see another. The guidance counselor sees another. The favorite teacher sees another.”

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org. 

This year’s college graduates include the first incarcerated students to be awarded bachelor’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin System in over 50 years, according to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

“I would say education is the best rehabilitation there is,” said student Christobal Guerrero-Kresovich, according to the department’s press release. “It trumps anything that anyone could do inside the prison system.” 

Guerrero-Kresovich lives at the Thompson Correctional Center and works a job in the community, according to the department. 

“I’m looking forward to turning in my blue collar for a white collar,” Guerrero-Kresovich said, according to the department. “When I go to the job board and it says ‘bachelor’s degree required,’ I know in 60 days I’ll be able to apply for those positions.” 

Graduation ceremonies this week at Oakhill and Stanley Correctional Institutions recognize the first bachelor’s degrees any UW has awarded to incarcerated people since 1975, the agency said. 

Fifteen current or former Oakhill residents were awarded bachelor’s degrees Monday from UW-Green Bay; eight other students are earning associate’s degrees. At Stanley, eight students will received bachelor’s degrees Wednesday from UW-Eau Claire and six will receive bachelor’s degrees from UW-Stout. 

UW programs for incarcerated students are offered primarily face-to-face inside the prisons, the department said. They focus on developing skills in communication, management and leadership.

Guerrero-Kresovich is one of the first incarcerated people to earn a UW bachelor’s degree through the Prison Education Initiative, a UW-Madison project that builds partnerships between the UW system and the Department of Corrections. The UW offers courses at 11 Department of Corrections facilities across the state, according to the department. 

The initiative launched in 2022 with a $5.7 million Workforce Innovation Grant, one of a group of grants that “support innovative solutions to the state’s workforce needs,” the corrections agency said.

“Wisconsin believes in second chances,” Gov. Tony Evers said in the press release. He said that investing in education in correctional facilities is a “common-sense strategy” to meet the economy’s need for skilled workers and help people gain the skills they need to succeed.  

The initiative has aided more than 200 students who have earned associate’s degrees or other UW credentials designed to increase their employment opportunities after release, reduce the number of people committing new crimes and “build stronger communities across Wisconsin.” 

“They are learning how to contribute positively to society,” Department of Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy said. “The average incarceration in Wisconsin is less than three years. These individuals will quickly have the opportunity to put their education to work and help move Wisconsin forward.”

 

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It’s been over six years since Tracy Cole learned that her 17-year-old son Alvin had become the third person killed by Joseph Mensah, at that time a Wauwatosa police officer. Alvin’s death in February 2020 was followed a few months later by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis officers, fueling months of protests and clashes with the Wauwatosa Police Department, followed by years of litigation in court. 

The Cole family is finalizing a confidential settlement over Alvin’s killing, and his mother has been reflecting on her personal journey to find solace amidst grief. The settlement, coming after two hung juries and as a third trial neared, will not come out of Mensah’s pocket despite what his attorneys implied during the trials, the Cole family’s lawyers told the Wisconsin Examiner. 

“We haven’t had time to grieve yet but it’s coming along,” Tracy Cole told the Examiner in an exclusive interview. The settlement, she said, brings some “closure to my family.” 

Alvin Cole was killed in February 2020 after a foot chase at Wauwatosa’s Mayfair Mall. The teen and his friends left the mall after being involved in a noisy quarrel, during which witnesses told police that a handgun had been displayed. The group ran as officers intercepted them outside the mall, with Mensah arriving in an unmarked squad car without first announcing his presence on the police radio. 

As Cole ran away from officers and mall security a single gunshot rang out and Cole fell to the ground, having shot himself in the forearm. Mensah shot at Cole five times shortly thereafter, while Cole was on his hands and knees listening to officers yell contradictory commands,  “Drop the gun” and “Don’t move!” 

Mensah told police investigators that Cole pointed a gun at him while he was on the ground. Further testimony gathered by the Cole family’s attorney’s, however, found that a security guard and Wauwatosa officer who were closest to Cole when he was shot asserted that neither the teen nor the gun had moved at all before Mensah fired. The only Wauwatosa officer who also said that Cole pointed a gun — Evan Olson — contradicted Mensah by saying that the gun had been pointed in a completely different direction, towards Olson and away from Mensah. 

The contradictions led to a federal civil lawsuit over Cole’s death that went to trial twice. Testimony at those trials revealed that Mensah and Olson were good friends on and off the job and had violated protocols requiring officers to be separated after a shooting. They got into a squad car alone together and turned off their dash cameras and audio equipment before driving back to the police department. According to trial testimony, they did not share those facts with police investigators. Both trials ended in hung juries, leaving jurors unable to decide unanimously whether Mensah’s killing of Alvin Cole was excessive. 

Tracy said that she still remembers those trials, and what it was like to see Mensah for the first time. 

“It’s like I could finally see a person instead of a name,” she said. “It never changed anything of how I feel about him.” 

She also recalled other officers taking the stand as she sat with her husband and remaining children “listening to the different testimonies, just listening to the videos.” Images of Alvin’s body were also briefly shown, something that Tracy said “I’ll never forget.”

The two trials were tense at times, as attorneys battled over what evidence could be shown or attempted to discredit each other’s witnesses while bolstering their own.  At various points, U.S. Marshals stood sentry or increased their presence, which confused both the Cole family’s attorneys and U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman. Several Wauwatosa officers also arrived to watch the proceedings in the gallery, dressed in full uniform, sitting around Mensah’s wife, who is a disgraced Milwaukee officer, or chatting with the pair in the hallways. The Cole’s attorneys argued that the presence of fully uniformed Wauwatosa officers could influence the jury, and that the officers were expressing a sort of solidarity with Mensah, which the Cole family was prohibited from doing for Alvin. 

Nevertheless, the two hung juries were encouraging for Alvin’s mother. “It was somebody in the jury [who] basically believed that my son was never a threat,” said Tracy. “It was somebody listening.” 

Although Alvin’s father was allowed to testify freely in the first trial, Tracy was not allowed to testify. The effort to keep her testimony out of the court record stuck out to Tracy and her attorneys, especially after her testimony was limited during a separate trial in 2023, when Wauwatosa PD stood accused of spying on and surveilling the Cole family and protesters who supported them in 2020. 

“I would basically had said how my son was,” she told the Examiner. “The events that I had with the Wauwatosa Police Department, what they did to me as a mother, that should never had happened.” 

After the Cole family began protesting in 2020, Wauwatosa PD put them, their attorneys, a Wisconsin Examiner reporter, and dozens of supporters on what they called a “target list” on at least one occasion. The list was shared with numerous local, state, and federal agencies. Wauwatosa officers also violently arrested Tracy and her daughters, one of whom claimed to have been stripped searched at a jail and questioned by the FBI. 

Tracy would have testified to all of this if asked, she said, “but they didn’t want a mother’s testimony,” because it would’ve been emotionally impactful to the jury. “But my husband, he was able to speak on my son’s behalf.” 

Tracy feels that the protests, held for over 400 days after George Floyd’s death, changed Wauwatosa for the better. 

“We changed laws,” she told the  Examiner. Wauwatosa PD adopted body cameras in 2021 after the protests, one of the family’s key demands. The department refused to adopt body cameras previously, even after Mensah killed three people over five years. Two of those were less than a year apart, when Mensah was still a rookie, and all the incidents were troubled by a lack of good video. The Milwaukee County District Attorneys Office declined to charge Mensah with any of the killings. The first jury in the Cole family’s case stated that a lack of good video was a main reason they couldn’t agree on a verdict. 

No other fatal police shootings occurred in Wauwatosa during Mensah’s time at the department, and the Cole family’s attorneys say that they’re unable to find other examples of fatal police shootings in Wauwatosa besides Mensah’s, no matter how far back they look.

The protesters also pushed for a ban on no knock warrants, and for Mensah and longtime Police Chief Barry Weber to be removed. Mensah resigned in late 2020 followed by Weber, who retired after leading the department for over 30 years as local media covered how Weber’s department had targeted anyone who was seen as anti-police. 

Finding forgiveness 

Memories of those days are still with Tracy, regardless of how much Wauwatosa officials claim their community has moved on. Fighting back was something she had to do, she said, even though it took a lot out of her. She also needed to learn to forgive Mensah, she said. 

“At the end of the day, I had to learn to forgive him, for what he did to my son,” she told the Examiner. “It took a process to learn to forgive him. I can’t hold a grudge, because that would take a whole part of me. I had to learn to forgive him.” Mensah left law enforcement in 2025 after a stint at the Waukesha County Sheriffs Office, following his time at Wauwatosa PD.

Alvin’s death was tragic and painful for the Cole family, yet it also brought them together.

“It made us stronger, it made us united as one,” said Tracy Cole. She’s had to learn again how to trust law enforcement after her experience with not just Mensah, but with Wauwatosa PD and the suburb as a whole. 

Yet, her experience of being surveilled remains with their family. Tracy watches her every move now. “I never had to, but now I’m very particular where I go, who I be around, who I talk to.”

Since Alvin’s death, more families have been touched by police-related violence and killings in Milwaukee County. 

“I would tell people that’s going through what I went through to never give up,” said Tracy. “Never give up. …the Devil wanted me to give up but I didn’t. Don’t give up. Keep fighting for your child.”

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A growing number of incarcerated people across the country now have access to free phone calls and other communication services, a shift some advocates say is strengthening family connections, improving prison conditions and easing reentry after release.

A new report from Worth Rises, a nonprofit that advocates in opposition to the prison industry,  found that an estimated 330,000 incarcerated people nationwide now have access to free prison or jail communication services, including phone calls, video calls and electronic messaging in some jurisdictions.

For decades, incarcerated people and their families often paid steep rates for phone calls and other communication services through contracts between correctional facilities and private telecom providers. In recent years, several states and local governments have moved to make those services free, arguing that regular family contact can improve rehabilitation and reduce recidivism.

The group examined six prison systems — California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and the federal prison system — along with more than a dozen county jail systems, including facilities in Los Angeles, New York City and across Massachusetts.

The researchers found that the free communication policies reduced average costs by about 62% for state prison systems and 68% for jails after agencies negotiated contracts directly with providers. The report’s authors argue that finding could make free calls an appealing cost-saving strategy for states and local governments.

The free communication policies have generated nearly 600 million additional phone calls and 6.4 billion more minutes of connection between incarcerated people and their loved ones, according to the group’s estimates. In prisons included in the study, average daily call use per person increased from about 25 minutes to nearly 45 minutes after communication became free. In jails, daily usage more than doubled, from roughly 27 minutes to nearly 57 minutes a day.

The report also found the policies have saved incarcerated people and their families more than $622 million to date. Most of those savings flowed to Black and brown families, who are disproportionately affected by incarceration, according to the report.

Correctional staff at the facilities included in the study broadly supported the changes, according to the report, describing free communication as a tool that reduced tensions inside facilities and improved safety for both staff and incarcerated people.

The report also found that removing the cost of calls changed the nature of communication between incarcerated people and their families. Instead of limiting conversations to urgent or financial matters, people were more able to maintain regular contact, help care for children, coordinate housing and employment plans, and prepare for release.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at awatford@stateline.org.

FBI agents have visited the home of Milwaukee County’s elections director, Michelle Hawley, leaving a business card after attempting to contact her, Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson said Wednesday, prompting sharp reactions from county officials. 

Citing an unnamed source, WISN 12 News reported that the FBI was interested in 180,000 absentee ballots cast during the 2020 presidential election that reportedly have not yet been destroyed. 

President Donald Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 by about 20,000 votes, then unsuccessfully sought in court to overturn the results. 

In a statement Wednesday, Christenson said the county will follow up on the FBI’s attempt to interview Hawley. He defended the 2020 presidential election results in Milwaukee as fair, transparent and accurate. 

”This has been proven repeatedly over the last six years by the post-election canvass, the Presidential Election Recount, State court-based challenge, Federal court-based challenge, the forensic audit by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau, and two additional independent audits,” said Christenson. “Continuing to relitigate settled questions does not strengthen public confidence in elections but it undermines it.” 

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, reiterating that Trump lost the 2020 election, said that Trump has “crossed a line if he is sending FBI agents to the private residence of Milwaukee County’s elections director.” 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has previously reported that the FBI recently interviewed Robert Kehoe, deputy administrator for the Wisconsin Elections Commission. 

Local officials “will always cooperate with law enforcement officers and the investigations they are pursuing, but this action raises serious concerns of intimidation,” Crowley said. “Regardless of how this situation evolves, the facts are clear: In 2020, election clerks did their jobs. The election was safe and secure. Donald Trump lost the popular vote in Wisconsin. No amount of fear and intimidation from the Trump Administration will change that truth.”

Trump and his supporters have persisted in denying that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election more than five years ago.

Word of FBI agents visiting election officials in Milwaukee comes after the federal agency seized 2020 ballots in Georgia earlier this year. The British newspaper The Independent reported that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was seen at the raid, and the New York Times reported that Trump called her on the phone during the raid.  Georgia was a focus of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, when he called Georgia’s secretary of state and falsely claimed he had won the state that year. 

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Wisconsin Department of Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy read the names of 10 prison and community corrections workers described as seriously injured in the line of duty in 2025. 

“We work in close contact with a sometimes challenging population, and the only thing keeping it from being more dangerous is the professionalism and dedication of you and your colleagues,” Hoy said during the 2026 Secretary’s Awards ceremony last week at the Mitby Theater at Madison College, honoring standout staff. 

Among those recognized were the department’s legislative director, an officer who has grown fresh produce used in a facility kitchen and the New Lisbon Correctional Institution treatment team for restricted housing — where an incarcerated person may be sent as punishment for a violation.

The department’s first Corey Proulx award was named for a youth counselor who died in 2024 after a teen attacked him at the Lincoln Hills youth prison. Proulx’s death had a tremendous impact on the department, Hoy said. 

Hoy said that Lincoln Hills staff have created an area at Lincoln Hills/Copper Lake Schools for contemplation and reflection in Proulx’s honor, which “is beautiful and it just centers you.”

“As much as Corey’s death impacted us, his life meant so much more … Corey said, quote, ‘If I could make a difference in just one youth’s life, it will be worth it,’” Hoy said. “This award honors an employee who lives that philosophy every day.” 

A treatment specialist at the minimum-security Chippewa Valley Correctional Treatment Facility received the award. The facility aims to treat substance abuse and related issues, preparing people to re-enter their communities, the DOC’s website says. 

“When our clients feel loved, heard, respected and understood, it shows them that the world is not as harsh of a place as they thought,” Hoy said. “It gives them hope for their future and the ability to advocate for themselves.” 

Hoy also recognized staff who were honored with a lifesaving and valor award. 

“So what does this look like day to day?” Hoy said. “I’m talking about the staff at the La Crosse [probation and parole] office who leapt into action when a six-week-old premature baby stopped breathing. They delivered first aid to the infant, called 911 and kept calm. The baby recovered after a short hospital stay.”

Hoy said that at Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility, staff saw a person trying to climb a fence overlooking a 16-foot drop onto Interstate 43. The team helped the person off the fence and to safety, “stopping what would have likely been a successful suicide attempt,” Hoy said. 

As they were securing the first person, they saw another person climbing the fence across the street, Hoy said, and the team escorted that person back to safety as well. 

Senior probation and parole agent Amanda Herson received a safety award for her work on a situation involving a person who stalked a young woman at a technical college in Green Bay, according to an account of events announced by an awards ceremony emcee. 

That person was a client of Herson’s on correctional supervision in the community. Herson conducted a lengthy investigation into the stalking, which took place over two different semesters. 

Law enforcement was initially not interested in investigating, but Herson’s advocacy led to law enforcement seeing the severity of the stalking behaviors, the emcee said. 

Herson’s client, who was already on supervision for stalking multiple minors and an adult, was eventually charged with a new stalking offense.

“Agent Herson dedicated significant time to ensure the victim was safe and had a voice,” the emcee said. 

Eric Weigel has been a correctional officer with the DOC for over 22 years, according to a nomination read by an event emcee. He won a SALUTE (Service, Awareness, Leadership, Uniqueness, Team and Excellence) award in the category of “uniqueness.”

Weigel is currently the New Lisbon Correctional Institution horticulture officer, or “the garden guy.” As the horticulture officer for the past 10 years, he grew an average of 25,000 pounds of fresh produce per season, which was used in the institution kitchen for staff, meals for the incarcerated and reduced food costs. 

Weigel maintains a partnership between the New Lisbon prison and a national wildlife refuge, which he provides with native wildflower seeds. He’s one of the “very few” people at the prison who can perform all the duties of every single traditional post in the institution and do it “flawlessly,” and incarcerated people and staff listen to him and respect what he has to say, the emcee said.

Department of Corrections leadership made stops across the state last week. May 3-9 is recognized as Correctional Employees Week. 

Hoy said people who work in DOC institutions “know there’s one hot topic out there right now, and that is commutations.”

Last month, Gov. Tony Evers ordered the creation of a commutations advisory board, signaling that he is willing to consider reducing the sentences of incarcerated people in Wisconsin who meet certain criteria. Hoy said he spoke with a records supervisor who told him her office will get two to three requests for records reviews every week from incarcerated people, but they had gotten a hundred in the last week. 

Hoy said the supervisor told him that if their extra work meant one or two men at the facility “might have an opportunity for a second chance and to sort of take back their life, that it would all be worth it.”

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A growing number of states are reexamining how the criminal legal system treats pregnant and postpartum women behind bars.

This year, legislators in at least five states, including Kentucky, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia, have considered legislation that would reshape how pregnant people are treated in jails and prisons. The measures vary, but some seek to expand eligibility for alternatives to incarceration during pregnancy, restrict or prohibit restraints during labor and delivery, and strengthen data and reporting requirements.

The Utah and Virginia bills were signed into law in March and April, respectively. In Utah, the new law restricts the shackling of pregnant and postpartum women, and requires state prisons and jails to track the number of pregnant people in their custody, as well as incarcerated mothers of children under 18.

In Virginia, one of the new laws requires correctional facilities to adopt lactation policies for pregnant and postpartum incarcerated people by December 2028. A separate new law allows courts to consider home or electronic incarceration programs for pregnant or postpartum women, with certain exceptions.

The Kentucky legislature adjourned for the year without passing a similar measure there, but the bills in Ohio and South Carolina are still under consideration. Ohio’s legislative session runs through the end of the year, while South Carolina’s continues until mid-May.

The latest legislative activity comes amid growing scrutiny of conditions faced by pregnant people in prisons and jails, as well as increased interest in nursery and community-based programs for mothers.

At least nine states have prison nursery programs, and about a handful of others are considering or developing similar programs.

In Wisconsin, the state Department of Corrections said in early April that the agency is still working to develop a program for incarcerated mothers and their newborns, but has faced challenges due to funding and facility capacity limits. 

The Justice-Involved Women and Children Collaborative at the University of Minnesota this spring launched what the group describes as the first comprehensive national database tracking state policies affecting pregnant people in custody.

The interactive tool documents more than 460 active policies across the country, including statutes on the use of restraints, access to abortion and access to menstrual products. 

The database fills a longstanding gap in information about how state systems regulate pregnancy in correctional settings. Policies vary widely not only from state to state, but sometimes among facilities within the same state. Federal data also is limited. The most recent national statistics on pregnant incarcerated people, which were released last year, reflect prison populations from 2023.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at awatford@stateline.org.

Racine County and two juvenile detention center staff members in Caledonia, Wisconsin have been sued for allegedly using excessive force on a teen. In a statement, the county says it has made changes since the incident. 

The teen’s mother, Kianna Reed, brought the lawsuit against the county and Robert and Jordan Knight, described in the suit as former and current security coordinators. The facility, the Jonathan Delagrave Youth Development and Care Center, opened less than a month before the incident. 

The lawsuit alleges that on May 27, 2025, the teen, who suffers from emotional and psychological disabilities, became emotionally dysregulated and the Knights egged him on and physically attacked him with excessive force that violated his Eighth Amendment rights. . 

In December, the state public defender’s office released video footage of part of the incident, which appeared to show four staff members directing the then-15-year-old to move from a spot by a wall in a hallway, possibly to a nearby room, and the teen not moving, the Examiner reported. 

After a staff member took a swing at the teen, the situation devolved into a struggle. The teen was struck repeatedly by staff before and after he was on the ground. 

“I’m devastated. No mother should ever have to watch her child be beaten by the very people entrusted with his safety,” Reed said, according to the December release from the public defender’s office. “Seeing that video and knowing my son is still in that facility is terrifying.”  According to the lawsuit, which was filed April 28, the teen is no longer at the facility as of April 9. 

The lawsuit says his placement in the facility stemmed from being found guilty of a misdemeanor count of retail theft and a misdemeanor count of obstructing an officer. 

On the evening of May 27, 2025, while the teen was in the facility dayroom, he “became dysregulated due to one or more of his disabilities, and he began arguing with another (facility) resident,” the lawsuit alleges. An employee requested assistance from safety and security coordinators.

The Knights responded to the dayroom, and the teen willingly walked with them to the intake area with no physical resistance, the lawsuit alleges. Two other coordinators accompanied them to the intake room.

In December, the county said that the teen made multiple threats of physical violence to other juveniles and staff. During the walk to the intake area, he was “mouthing off” to the Knights, who egged him on, the lawsuit alleges. The teen told Jordan Knight he would beat him up but “made no physical contact or aggressive moves toward Jordan Knight.” 

In the intake area, Robert Knight pointed in the teen’s face and screamed at him to “stop making threats,” the lawsuit states. 

The lawsuit says Knight told the teen to enter a holding room and repeatedly said “go ahead then.” It says that without physical provocation or physical resistance from the teen, he punched the teen in the face.

The lawsuit alleges that the teen did not punch, kick or otherwise try to injure the Knights during the incident. Robert and Jordan Knight hit him over 20 times with closed fists, knee strikes and elbow strikes, it says.

The teen experienced physical injury, pain and suffering, emotional distress and other damages, the lawsuit says.

According to the public defender’s office, the teen had bruises, swelling on his right eye, blurred vision and headaches, scrapes and cuts and dried blood in his ear, based on records from evaluations arranged by the facility. 

The county executive’s office sent a statement to the Examiner, saying that after the incident, Racine County conducted an internal review of policies, procedures and operational practices at the center, with protocol updates receiving final approval from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. 

“Racine County Human Services is dedicated to continuous improvement. It is imbedded in our operations with the goal for the highest quality of services for those entrusted in our care,” the county asserted in a written statement. 

The county stated that as part of that review, it implemented additional measures focused on supervisor practices, staff training and continued development on de-escalation, trauma-informed care and evidence-based responses for youth with complex behavioral and mental health needs. 

The county said it also reviewed treatment-oriented models used in other facilities serving youth with significant behavioral or mental health challenges “to inform ongoing operational improvements.”

Racine County said in December that “the primarily involved staff member” was immediately placed on administrative leave after the incident and resigned within three days. 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in December that this was Robert Knight and that Knight said the teen was displaying signs of aggression at the time of the incident. He said his actions were justified based on the teen’s history at the center.  

The Journal Sentinel reported that he said he intended to force the boy back and not actually strike him but that this is not apparent in the video. 

Knight said he resigned because of a shift toward working with more youth with mental health issues, according to the Journal Sentinel. 

The lawsuit alleges that he resigned to avoid investigation of his conduct and actions. 

A different worker seen repeatedly striking Anthony was ordered to complete eight hours of remedial training, according to the public defender’s office release in December. The Journal Sentinel reported that this was Jordan Knight, who, according to the lawsuit, is still working at the facility.

In December, the county said that law enforcement and independent human services agencies fully investigated and reviewed the incident. It said the details of the investigation and relevant video were provided to the Racine County District Attorney’s Office, and that the office declined to pursue prosecution. 

On Friday, the Examiner asked the district attorney’s office for a statement on why the office declined to pursue prosecution. District Attorney Tricia Hanson said in an email that the lawsuit does not change her decision. She said the burden of proof in a criminal case is significantly higher than in the civil lawsuit. 

In December, the public defender’s office called for a “full-scale” investigation into conditions at the facility and the qualifications of staff members who interact with children. State Public Defender Jennifer Bias said that meaningful reforms to how children are treated in the juvenile justice system are needed. 

In its statement on Friday, the county said it will respond to the allegations through the legal process and will not further discuss the pending lawsuit. 

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As former Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan approaches sentencing after being convicted of obstructing federal agents during an immigration arrest last year, attorneys on both sides of the case are battling over whether new precedents around federal statutes should apply to the former Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge. 

The FBI arrested Dugan last year on charges she helped a man who was making a routine appearance in her court evade immigration officers who were waiting for him in the public hallway outside the courtroom. 

Court staff initially noticed the agents and informed Dugan, who approached them and told the agents to go check in with the chief judge. 

While the agents waited to talk to Chief Judge Carl Ashley, Dugan went back to her courtroom and quickly called 30-year-old Mexican-born Eduardo Flores Ruiz and his attorney, set a date for them to come back, and then allowed them to exit the courtroom through a non-public hallway, at the end of which was a door back into the hallway where the agents waited. After going out that door, Flores-Ruiz and his attorney unknowingly rode the elevator down with one of the undercover agents. Flores Ruiz was arrested outside after a brief foot pursuit. 

Dugan was charged with obstructing federal agents and concealing Flores Ruiz. After a trial in December, a federal jury found Dugan guilty of felony obstruction but not guilty of misdemeanor concealment. Dugan’s attorneys highlighted the split verdict and moved for U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman to overturn the conviction. 

In April, Urban Milwaukee reported, Dugan’s legal team filed a motion arguing that a recent U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision changed the precedent governing the legal interpretation of the federal statute under which Dugan was convicted. The decision, in United States v. Hernandez, held that immigration proceedings do not include deportation operations, relevant since Dugan, who resigned shortly after her trial, was convicted of obstructing an immigration “proceeding.” 

Federal prosecutors have countered that the appeals court decision “is neither binding nor persuasive, and it does nothing to call into question this Court’s reasoning.” They argue that the jury instructions crafted by prosecutors and provided to the jury by Judge Adelman over instructions crafted by the defense team were sound. Adelman had previously denied a request from Dugan’s legal team for acquittal and a new trial.

Dugan faces up to five years in prison and $350,000 in fines. Her sentencing is scheduled for June 3. 

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Tribal governing board members of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in northwest Wisconsin voted to make May 5 the Tribal Day of Awareness of missing and murdered indigenous women and relatives (MMIW/R) and authorized the creation of the Bad River MMIW/R Task Force on April 22.

All 11 federally recognized Wisconsin tribes participate in the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s MMIW/R Task Force, but Bad River is creating its own tribal task force. On Tuesday, more than 50 members of the Bad River community participated in an annual MMIW/R Awareness walk. They followed a route inside the reservation marked by posters and red dresses (one of the visual symbols of the MMIW/R movement) displayed on hangers hung from garden stakes.

The annual Bad River MMIW/R walk is one of several across North America to raise awareness of the violence, especially murder and disappearance, affecting indigenous people.

Bad River Chair Liz Arbuckle and several members of the task force participated in the Tuesday walk and discussed the newly formed task force.

“When I became chair, this was something I wanted to prioritize,” said Arbuckle. “Violence against our people, particularly women, is catastrophic. It’s a crisis, and we know every tribal community has been affected by it, both on rez and off rez, and so this is a good way for us to educate people about the issue.”

She said the task force has three main goals:

• Education, outreach, and prevention.
• Creating response teams and response plans.
• Preparing for the possibility that the Canadian energy company Enbridge will bring a large workforce for the Line 5 pipeline reroute to the area, creating what has been termed “man camps,” a concentration of male pipeline workers in rural areas, especially tribal areas.

Bad River and environmental groups are challenging the 41-mile Line 5 reroute around the reservation in court, but Arbuckle said the tribe must prepare as if the project will proceed.

“We’ve seen in other communities when there are large groups of men in camps, especially outside of Native reservations, the statistics show that it can be a really dangerous place, because some of these guys have a lot of money and these girls get caught up in that, or people get caught up in that and bad things can happen,” she said, “So we want to make sure we educate people about that and prepare them to make good decisions for themselves.”

A 2021 Guardian article, “Sexual violence along pipeline route follows Indigenous women,” reported that crisis centers noted more than 40 reports of workers on Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement in northern Minnesota were alleged to have harassed and assaulted women and girls. 

In that same article, Michael Barnes, an Enbridge spokesperson, said the corporation has “zero tolerance for illegal behavior by anyone associated with our company or its projects,” and the article also noted the corporation fired two workers charged with sexual/human trafficking.

Another, larger objective of the task force, said Arbuckle, is to create dialogue among local, state and federal agencies to share information and work cooperatively across jurisdiction lines, which is often difficult  when tribal lands are involved.

The task force includes members of social services, legal, public health and law enforcement agencies.

“I thought this is a great group that has different skills and different programs to come after it from different angles,” said Arbuckle.

If there is a crisis or emergency, such as a disappearance, all the preparation and forethought from the task force, said Arbuckle,  will have at least put the tribe in a better position to respond.

“We shouldn’t just start from scratch if someone goes missing,” she said. “We should have a plan. We should know the people. We should have a good relationship with the police or the sheriff.”

Theresa Morris, a community health manager, is a member of the task force, whose goal is to educate members about man camps and encourage members to travel in pairs and to let others know their whereabouts and plans.

Gina Jensen, a health worker who represents the tribe’s police commission, noted one of her motivations for being on the task force is that the murder rate for indigenous women is 10 times the national average.

Aurora Conley, one of the tribal governing board members who voted to approve the task force, said its creation signals the tribe is paying attention and is committed to being proactive and prepared, including networking and working with other tribes, communities and the state.

“I thought it was a beautiful thing, definitely,” Coley said of the task force’s creation, “and to let our community members know that those that have gone missing or murdered in the past have not been forgotten.”

Conley said as a parent of two Indigenous children she feels an obligation to make them aware that they are at higher risk.

“I have a small daughter, and it’s a different sense of awareness that we have to create … it better prepares our children and our communities,” she said.

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A Milwaukee provider of personal care services has been charged with bilking Wisconsin’s Medicaid program of almost $2.2 million, the state Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

Debbie Long, 44, was charged with billing Medicaid for services that didn’t take place, according to the criminal complaint filed Tuesday.

The complaint also charges Long inflated the size of the payroll and workforce at her home health business to obtain a $219,072 loan under the Paycheck Protection Program enacted to help businesses that had to temporarily shut down early in the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, the complaint alleges she purchased businesses and a luxury car with proceeds, using a series of shell companies to conceal where some of the funds came from.

Long’s business, Pinnacle Home Health Care LLC, submitted reimbursement claims for services purportedly provided to Medicaid members between March 2017 and August 2022, according to the complaint. DOJ investigators reviewing those submissions found at least $2.1 million in Medicaid reimbursements to Pinnacle for services that weren’t performed, the complaint charges.

The complaint says the allegedly fraudulent billings included “impossible or improbable hours of service,” such as a personal care worker who reportedly worked more than 12 hours on a single day for one Medicaid member.

There were also reimbursements for services that were never provided, according to the complaint, for services that were more than workers provided, for services in which the Medicaid member’s need was “misrepresented,” and for services when the Medicaid member was in the hospital or incarcerated — situations in which members weren’t eligible for Medicaid reimbursement.

The investigation included interviews with Medicaid recipients as well as personal care workers employed by the business who helped investigators uncover some of the allegedly false information provided, according to the complaint.

Long is charged with five felony counts: theft by false representation greater than $10,000, fraud against a financial institution greater than $100,000, wire fraud against a financial institution, and two counts of money laundering greater than $100,000.

Court records reviewed Wednesday did not list an attorney for Long.

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