May 14, 2002
People are starting to come forward about alleged improprieties involving the Winnebago County District Attorney. Last Friday, Action 2 News reported on an investigation of that office by the FBI involving possible bribes.
To date, two people have stepped forward saying they paid what they feel amounted to a bribe to get a reduced sentence. One of those is an Oshkosh woman who says her attorney told her $5,000 would guarantee a reduced sentence on a drunk driving conviction. She paid, and it was.
Now an Oshkosh man tells a similar story, that he had to pay extra money to his lawyer to have his drunk driving sentence reduced. Leroy Ruedinger heard about the woman's story and recalled that in 1996 something similar happened to him.
At that time, his attorney, Milt Schierland, who now works for the DA's office, told Ruedinger to write a $700 check to the DARE program he would get a reduced sentence.
"It would reduce my jail time from six month to thirty days," Ruedinger said.
"So I wrote out a check for $700 and I went to hand it to him before the court hearing, and he stated he couldn't take it because it was made out to DARE, he had to have it made out to him. So I scratched out 'DARE' and put his name in there," Ruedinger told Action 2 News.
Ruedinger's wife was instantly suspicious. "If it was truly going to DARE, why wouldn't Milt Schierland accept this check that was clearly written out to DARE? What is the cover up here? There's something going on," Pat Ruedinger said.
Pat and Leroy said there's one reason they never said anything until now. "Leroy had said to me I was told to keep my mouth shut about this," she said.
Ann Gollner is a Menasha police officer who use to work in the DA's office. She's the one who notified the FBI about cases like the Ruedinger's.
"I can just comment on the fact that I turned over cases to the FBI," Gollner told Action 2 News.
We asked if the cases were all similar to this one. "The same same type of pattern, yes," she answered.
Gollner says she only knows personally of one case where money changed hands.
All of this has the Winnebago County District Attorney yelling foul. Fox Valley Bureau Chief Jerry Burke has Joe Paulus's side of the story on Action 2 News at Six.
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