News 12.22.16
22 December 2016 News
A Fond du Lac judge will rule next month on a motion to dismiss first murder charges against an over the road trucker from Kenosha. Dennis Brantner is charged in the 1990 death of Berit Beck in Fond du Lac County. A motion hearing was held Wednesday afternoon before Fond du Lac judge Robert Wirtz. Judge Wirtz says he will review arguments and a video of an interview with Brantner and detectives and make an oral ruling at a January 23rd hearing. A mistrial was declared last summer after jurors told the judge they could not reach a unanimous verdict. Wirtz was assigned to the case after Judge Gary Sharpe stepped down after he made comments about the case to the jury shortly after declaring the mistrial. District attorney Eric Toney says if the judge does not grant a defense motion to dismiss the case, the state plans to ask for a retrial.
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The Dodge County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a high speed chase and crash. Just after 2:20 a.m. Wednesday, a deputy stopped a vehicle traveling westbound on State Highway 16 in the Town of Emmet. A deputy believed the driver, a 26-year-old Madison man, was under the influence and attempted to take him into custody. The Sheriff’s Office says that’s when the driver took off at a high rate of speed in a 2016 Dodge Challenger. A chase ensued on State Highway 26 for less than one mile. At that time, the suspect’s vehicle went off the road, rolled and came to a rest. The suspect got out of the vehicle and ran off. He was located a short time later and taken into custody. The driver was taken to an Oconomowoc hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries. Police say drugs and alcohol are believed to be factors in the chase and crash. The suspect was the only person in the vehicle and no one else was hurt.
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A civil lawsuit is filed against the owner of three scrap metal companies, alleging he defrauded a Fond du lac scrap metal company out of millions of dollars. The summons and complaint filed in Fond du lac County Circuit Court says Sterling Kienbaum, the owner of Fox Valley and Gibson Iron and Metal of Oshkosh and Auto and Scrap Recyclers of Milwaukee defrauded Sadoff Iron and Metal in excess of $10 million. According to the complaint Kienbaum directed the operation where vehicles were packed with dirt and other debris to fraudulently increase the weight of what was being sold to Sadoff’s. In order to avoid detection, Kienbaum provided large sums of cash to a semi driver who in turn pocketed some of the cash for himself and paid some to a Sadoff employee. Those individuals, Daniel Christianson and Donald Krueger, were recently convicted and placed on probation. Krueger, a union steward at Sadoff and Christianson told police the fraudulent scheme had been ongoing for years. The complaint says the bribe money ensured that Krueger would accept the fraudulently overweighted loads. According to the complaint cars were filled with dirt at Fox Valley Metal prior to crushing and loading them. Krueger was the crane operator and when stockpiling the cars he would flip them upside down to shake the dirt out of them.
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Local unemployment rates went down in most major Wisconsin cities, but increased in most counties between October and November. The state Department of Workforce Development released the latest figures on Wednesday. They show that unemployment rates decreased or stayed the same in 21 of 32 of the state’s largest cities. But they went up in 48 of 72 counties. Racine had the highest unemployment rate in November at 5.4 percent, followed by Milwaukee at 5.1 percent. Fitchburg’s is the lowest at 2.5 percent followed by Sun Prairie at 2.6 percent. Menominee County has the highest county unemployment rate at 6.9 percent, while Dane County is the lowest at 2.7 percent. The statewide unemployment rate in Wisconsin was 4.1 percent in November.
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Add Gov. Scott Walker to the list of politicians not thrilled with the idea of requiring random drug tests for high school students participating in sports or extracurricular activities. Walker says mandating drug tests is not something he’s heard from people studying how to fight the spread of heroin and prescription drug abuse. Walker says he’s going to focus on what he’s hearing are the “most effective tools” to combat drug abuse. His comments come after Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Tuesday said he didn’t see a “groundswell of support” for the idea and he didn’t want to mandate drug testing for all schools. The drug testing idea came from a task force of legislators and others looking at ways to combat heroin abuse.
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Gov. Scott Walker says Wisconsin’s K-12 public schools will see a “sizeable increase” in state aid under his budget to be released in February. Walker say details about how much money they will receive will have to wait until he submits his two-year spending plan to the Legislature. But Walker says he is specifically targeting rural schools for more money, funneled through the sparsity aid program. Those districts typically face higher transportation costs as students are brought in from greater distances to attend schools. Walker has faced criticism from public school advocates for cutting funding for those schools while expanding the private school voucher program statewide.
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