WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) — Marathon County’s District Attorney confirms he has not become involved in any special John Doe investigation involving Wausau city officials.
While the City of Wausau hires a special investigator to look into a previous Human Resources Department investigation of Alderman Keene Winters, Winters believes there are criminal acts that should be pursued. He insists there should be a separate, John Doe criminal investigation initiated by the District Attorney’s office. So far, that hasn’t happened.
District Attorney Kenneth Heimerman told WSAU he has heard talk about the issue and has checked with his staff for possible requests. “I keep hearing about it, and my curiosity was up, and do we have anything about this? I’ve been hearing about it for maybe a week, week and a half.”
Normally, Heimerman’s office processes criminal charges based on reports from area police. “Most of what I get comes through a police investigation. That’s my preference, because there’s an investigation and I can act on, you know, facts and things like that, but private citizens have sent us things, so no, there’s no particular channel.”
Heimerman says he hasn’t received any request for a criminal investigation yet. “I can tell you that I have heard, mostly from media people, that I may be receiving some information to review. I can tell you that when I checked yesterday that I was informed that my office has received nothing, so I have nothing to review and I have no comment about it at this time until I review something.”
Alderman Keene Winters admits using foul language when addressing Transit Director Greg Seubert in November when a bus route expansion proposal got no traction. Seubert has filed a grievance with the city. Winters claims he is an elected official, and not a city employee, so is not subject to the employee manual guidelines. City officials initiated an investigation of Winters which both Winters and City Attorney Anne Jacobson say have legal problems. Winters also believes the problems had a direct impact on his failed mayoral campaign.
As a result of the city hall conflicts, Jacobson now reports to the city council and not Mayor Jim Tipple after last week’s council vote. She was reprimanded by the mayor February 4th. H-R Director Mila Hite has also filed a grievance against Jacobson.
The District Attorney says if his office were to get involved in the city’s investigation of Keene Winters, he would probably request a special prosecutor from outside of the county since he and the staff know many city officials and would not want any possible conflict of interest issues.
