Three people, including a former aide to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, were arrested Thursday as part of a secret criminal probe that found two of the men stole funds intended for wounded vets and families of U.S soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tim Russell ? who had been with Walker as a campaign and county aide since 2002 but did not get a job in the governor?s administration ? was charged as part of the ongoing ?John Doe? investigation that is examining whether some Walker staffers engaged in political activity on taxpayer time, the Milwaukee County district attorney announced Thursday. Two other individuals with ties to Walker, Brian Pierick and Kevin Kavanaugh, were also charged.
Continue ReadingRussell, who worked as Walker?s county housing director, was charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor count of embezzlement. Pietrick, the longtime partner of Russell and a staffer at the state Department of Public Instruction, was also charged Thursday with two felony counts of child enticement.
Kavanaugh, Walker?s appointee to the Milwaukee County Veteran Service Commission, was charged with five felonies of theft and fraudulent writings by a corporate office.
Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm said at a Thursday press conference that Kavanaugh was charged with stealing money more than $42,000 that was intended to provide for families of Wisconsin soldiers who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as wounded veterans. The donations were raised by Russell for an annual event for veterans called Operation Freedom, and Chisholm said prosecutors also found that Russell also used some of the funding ?for unlawful purposes.?
Russell transferred more than $20,000 intended for the vets into his personal accounts, according to the criminal complaint, and used the money paid for Caribbean and Hawaiian vacations, and also funded a political trip to Atlanta, Georgia for the organization of a presidential campaign, the complaint states.
Chisholm, who did not take any questions, added that Walker?s administration had requested the investigation.
?We go where the evidence leads and partisan politics plays no role,? Chisholm said at the press conference.
Pierick?s charges are child enticement and exposing genitals or a pubic area, Chisolm said, and while that case does not involve the same charges as in Russell?s or Kavanaugh?s cases, it emerged after computers were seized during the John Doe investigation.
Walker spokesman Chris Schrimpf told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the office had no immediate comment and ?we?re still looking at it.?
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