News 06.07.16
7 June 2016 News
A Fond du Lac woman accused of embezzling over 200 thousand dollars from her former employer in Lomira is changing her plea. At a hearing in Dodge County Circuit Court, 46 year old Tessa Hilt changed her plea from not guilty to not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. She’s charged with five counts of theft of a business setting. Hilt is accused of taking the money from Waas Boring and Cable Company in Lomira. She was the office manager from 2009 until 2014, when she left her position and had filed a lawsuit claiming sexual harassment or discrimination in the workplace. The company found the financial discrepancies while preparing a defense against the lawsuit. A scheduling conference has been set for August 15th.
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A 29-year-old man from southeastern Wisconsin is accused of driving around with the body of a woman who overdosed on heroin before seeking help. Gabriel Joseph Brandl of Clyman appeared in Dodge County court on a felony charge of hiding a corpse. His cash bond was set at $5,000. According to the complaint, a detective was called May 31st to Watertown Regional Medical Center to investigate the death of a 41-year-old woman who had overdosed on heroin at Clyman Park. The investigation determined Brandl and the women were in the park Monday when they bought heroin from their dealer. The woman passed out, and Brandl says he later realized while driving around with her that she was dead. He brought her body to the hospital about 10 hours later.
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Around a half-dozen Wisconsin prison inmates say they plan to go on a hunger strike this week in hopes of forcing the Department of Corrections to do away with solitary confinement. The International Workers of the World, a labor union, is working with the prisoners to draw attention to the strike. Ben Turk, a member of the IWW’s Milwaukee chapter, says the union has been in touch by mail with six inmates at Waupun Correctional Institution and one at Columbia Correctional Institution. He says all seven are currently in solitary confinement — one of them filed a lawsuit in April alleging he’s been in solitary for 25 years. DOC spokesman Tristan Cook has not yet issued a statement.
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The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is making a major change in the way it hires conservation wardens. Until now, roughly 200 wardens were uncertain about where they would land after completing the academy and field training. Starting with the class of 2017, candidates will now be able to apply for specific DNR stations around the state instead of waiting for assignment at the end of their training. Regional warden Ben Treml says the DNR interviewed past job-seekers and found the number one reason they didn’t follow through was the uncertainty of where they were going to be stationed. Treml says that made it difficult on recruits with families. The deadline to apply for the warden class of 2017 is June 29.
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Walworth County deputies now blame a different vehicle for last weekend’s crash that killed four people. After completing an investigation, Authorities now say 67-year-old Carol Terry of Rockford, Illinois caused the three-vehicle crash by running a stop sign at an intersection near Sharon. Officials first said that 26-year-old Carlos Venegas of Delavan ran the stop sign, colliding with a semi -truck before Terry’s S-U-V slammed into the wreckage. Venegas, his wife Maria, and their two-year-old son Carlos Junior were killed along with Terry. Terry’s 68-year-old husband remains hospitalized in critical condition.
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Students who wanted to celebrate the end of classes by driving their tractors to a Wisconsin high school were told to take their tractors home. Three students drove their tractors to Stratford High School in north-central Wisconsin on Friday morning. But Principal Janeen LaBorde says the students failed to get advance approval to bring the tractors to school. LaBorde would not say if the students were disciplined. But she tells News-Herald Media “their tractors went home.” The district does not have a written policy requiring students to get approval before bringing tractors on campus. But the principal says students were advised of the requirement in a school-wide announcement on Thursday. The school’s decision prompted criticism on social media.
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