The Badger Project sued the Wind Point Police Department after it denied records requests related to an officer who resigned in 2023. The village agreed to produce what they had and pay attorney’s fees.
By Annie Pulley, THE BADGER PROJECT
The Badger Project dropped a records lawsuit against a police department in Racine County after it agreed to foot the $1,500-legal bill and produce documents about an officer who resigned in 2023 just as the department began investigating him for alleged misconduct.
“We got everything we wanted,” said Tom Kamenick, The Badger Project’s attorney and the founder and president of The Wisconsin Transparency Project.
Officer Richard Von Drasek worked at the Village of Wind Point Police Department for eight years before he “resigned prior to the completion of an internal investigation,” according to a state Department of Justice database that tracks negative separations at law enforcement agencies. He later briefly worked for the Burlington Police Department.
The Wind Point Police Department twice refused requests for investigatory records related to Von Drasek. In March, the department characterized the request for documents regarding his December 2023 resignation as “vague and overbroad.”
Wind Point Police Chief Tommy Sharrett wrote in his denial that disclosure could hinder the efficacy of the department’s internal investigations; negatively affect the public by inhibiting an officer’s ability to enforce the law; compromise the employment data of public employees; decrease the department’s ability to attract quality law enforcement personnel; and hurt the “good name, reputation, honor or integrity of the public employee” in question.
However, denying records requests, according to Wisconsin law, “generally is contrary to the public interest, and only in an exceptional case may access be denied.” State law presumes “complete public access.”
The Badger Project then filed a lawsuit for the records. An attorney representing the police department said in October that there were no specific investigation or separation records to produce since Von Drasek voluntarily resigned before the investigation formally began.
The lawsuit prompted the department to produce a few documents indicating he would be investigated, including a Dec. 4, 2023, notice of an investigatory interview the village sent to Von Drasek.
The notice said the “nature of the concerns involves (1) the number of hours assigned officers, how those hours are accounted for and how those hours are paid; and, (2) issues involving the use of the Village credit card.”
Two days later, before the interview could take place, Von Drasek resigned.
The Badger Project agreed to drop the lawsuit after the department turned over the few documents it had and pay the attorney’s fees, court costs and $100 in statutory damages, Kamenick said.
The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.
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