A sheriff’s investigation recommended that the Waterford Police Department fire Nathaniel Schweitzer in 2024 for “dishonest behavior.” He was recently promoted to sergeant in Waukesha County.

By Annie Pulley, THE BADGER PROJECT

An officer who resigned from the Town of Waterford Police Department after he was caught on camera bragging about fudging his time cards was recently promoted to sergeant at another department a few miles away.

Nathaniel Schweitzer resigned prior to the completion of an internal investigation in December, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice flagged officer database, which tracks cops who leave a job under negative circumstances. His separation from that police department came amid a slew of investigations into other cops in Waterford. Schweitzer is now a sergeant at Big Bend Police Department in Waukesha County.

In a phone interview, former Waterford Town Chair Teri Jendusa-Nicolai accused Schweitzer of “loafing” and, on at least 12 different occasions, switching approved vacation time for comp time on his time card. 

Because the police department’s staffing levels were so low as a result of the investigations into their officers, several of whom were placed on administrative leave at the time, requests for comp time were “frequently denied because they didn’t have an available officer who wouldn’t be on overtime in order to fill that shift,” current Waterford Supervisor Robert Ulander said in a phone interview. 

Schweitzer would put in a request for vacation time, have it approved, and on the back end, he’d mark it as comp time on his time card, Ulander said. 

The practice didn’t benefit Schweitzer financially, but it did cost the town in overtime and allowed Schweitzer to save vacation time while “he got time off that he otherwise would not have gotten,” Ulander said. 

“Schweitzer’s fraudulent behavior cost the Town over $2,500 in unnecessary overtime costs,” according to an investigation by the Racine County Sheriff’s Office completed in the fall of 2024. 

“Schweitzer knowingly engaged in dishonest, fraudulent, deceitful, and lazy behavior,” the report reads. “Such misconduct cannot be tolerated and warrants TERMINATION.” 

Before that, in the summer of 2024, the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department launched a criminal investigation into Schweitzer’s conduct. At the time, Waterford’s police officers were being supervised by a lieutenant from the Racine County Sheriff’s Office after the department’s police chief retired earlier than expected and two lieutenants were placed on administrative leave, Jendusa-Nicolai said. The August investigation found no criminal wrongdoing or policy violations.

Schweitzer’s union representative said there was a verbal agreement allowing officers to substitute comp time for vacation time under certain circumstances, according to the investigation by the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department. Jendusa-Nicolai denies that she verbally agreed to this practice, according to the Racine County Sheriff’s Office.

Schweitzer told the investigating detective he did not gain financially from the practice and that it had been a common practice of other officers at the department.

“I was unable to find any policy stating that a Waterford PD officer could not enter comp time on a day that they had a vacation scheduled,” read the detective’s report. 

Jendusa-Nicolai said she helped initiate investigations into multiple officers who would end up resigning before the investigations concluded. She believes the department’s issues run deep and include professionalism concerns like sleeping on the job.

“It was the whole culture,” Jendusa-Nicolai said. “The more we dug, the more we realized that they’ve been operating like this for years.”

Jendusa-Nicolai was voted out of her position in April by Waterford voters amid the backdrop of investigations. 

In its own investigation, the Racine County Sheriff’s Office emphasized the surveillance footage depicting Schweitzer speaking about his time cards. 

In the video, posted online by Ulander, Schweitzer can be heard saying, “I bet I’ve money laundered like a hundred f****** hours of comp. They don’t know.”

The report from the second sheriff’s investigation, which focused on the allegations of administrative deception and not criminal wrongdoing, said there was no “past practice” of officers swapping comp for vacation time. It references various policy violations related to his time card practices and at least one instance where, rather than being on patrol, as he was supposed to be, he was in the police department on his cell phone.

Schweitzer declined to comment for this story, but directed The Badger Project to a press release published late last year from the state’s largest law enforcement union, the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, which said the investigation into Schweitzer was “retaliation.”

Schweitzer had advocated for the Waterford Police Department at an August 2024 town board meeting meant to consider whether to increase the town’s reliance on the Racine County Sheriff’s Office, the same office that recommended Schweitzer be fired a few months later.

“It was not retaliation,” Jendusa-Nicolai said. The former town chair said she gave Schweitzer permission to speak at the town meeting even though she was not obligated to. 

That same night, before Jendusa-Nicolai left the town building, which is in the same structure as the police department, she said she saw and briefly spoke to Schweitzer even though he was supposed to be out on patrol. She asked her clerk to review surveillance footage and see if his squad car ever left the police department. While reviewing the footage, her clerk came across the recording of Schweitzer talking about his time cards.

The WPPA argued the video footage was of a union meeting and filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission alleging that the conversation should not have been recorded. Ulander said the town disputes it was a union meeting and that any improper recording occurred.

Ulander said the parties are working toward a settlement. The WPPA didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

In 2019, Schweitzer started working for Waterford on a part-time basis while he was also working as a patrol officer for the Village of Big Bend’s police department, the same agency that promoted Schweitzer to sergeant in May, according to Schweitzer’s reported work history on the application.

In 2021, Schweitzer became a full-time officer at Waterford. He resigned about three years later.

This isn’t the first time he has been forced out of a law enforcement job.

Schweitzer noted on an application for officer training with the state DOJ that he left the Town of Hartford Police Department in 2016 due to a “disputed termination.”

In 2009, in his first law enforcement position, Schweitzer resigned from the Medford Police Department after less than five months into the job, according to that application, one of many documents Ulander obtained via a records request and posted online. In 2010, Schweitzer resigned from the Menominee Tribal Police Department after two months on the job.

Since 2009, Schweitzer has worked at 12 different law enforcement agencies. He is also currently employed as a part-time officer with the Lannon Police Department in Waukesha County.

Jamie Aide, Big Bend’s police chief, wrote in an email to The Badger Project that the department completed a background check on Schweitzer before he was hired.

“I am aware of his reason for separation from the Town of Waterford Police Department,” Aide wrote. “It is my understanding that the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department conducted an investigation at the Town of Waterford’s request and did not find any violations of Department Policy nor State Law.”

He noted that he was not chief when the Big Bend Police Department hired Schweitzer and thus was not involved in the decision. But Aide did promote him to sergeant in May.

The chief did not comment on the findings of the investigation by the Racine County Sheriff’s Office.

In January, when Nicolai was still on the Waterford board, it voted to disband its police department and to hire the Racine County Sheriff’s Office to provide service.

But after Nicolai was ousted in April, the board voted in May to reestablish the police department.

Number of wandering officers in Wisconsin continues to rise, while total number of officers statewide sits near-record low

The total number of law enforcement officers in Wisconsin has dropped for years and now sits at near record lows, as chiefs and sheriffs say they struggle to fill positions in an industry less attractive to people than it once was.

Statewide, the number of wandering officers, those who were fired or forced out from a previous job in law enforcement, continues to rise. Nearly 400 officers in Wisconsin currently employed were fired or forced out of previous jobs in law enforcement in the state, according to the state DOJ database, almost double the amount from 2021. And that doesn’t include officers who were pushed out of law enforcement jobs outside of the state who came to Wisconsin to work.

Chiefs and sheriffs can be incentivized to hire wandering officers, experts say. Hiring someone new to law enforcement means the police department or sheriff’s office has to wait for the novice to finish at least 720 hours of law enforcement training, and sometimes much more depending on the law enforcement agency, before they are fully available to work.

A wandering officer already has their certification and can start working a full schedule right away.

About 13,400 law enforcement officers are currently employed in Wisconsin, excluding those who primarily work in a corrections facility, according to the state DOJ. Wandering officers make up nearly 3 percent of the total.

Many wandering officers are simply rookies who did not succeed in a new and complicated field during their probationary period, when the bar to fire them is very low, experts say, and some perform better in a slower-paced environment. But others have more serious reasons for being pushed out.

And those officers can cause future problems. At least one major study published in the Yale Law Journal found that wandering officers are more likely to receive a complaint for a moral character violation, compared to new officers and veterans who haven’t been fired or forced out from a previous position in law enforcement.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.