paulusinv7

Officer In the Line of Fire

From WBAY May 15:

Winnebago County District Attorney Joe Paulus fired two of his assistant

D.A.'s late Tuesday afternoon and asked a third worker in his office to

resign. Ed "E.J." Jelinski, who is running for district attorney, was fired

along with Tom Chalcoff, who is Jelinski's campaign manager. Paulus

also asked for the resignation of Menasha police officer Jim Curtis, but

Curtis refused to resign.

Curtis works in the district attorney's Domestic Abuse Unit. He spoke

with Action 2 News Tuesday after the shakeup in the district attorney's

office.

Curtis said a couple months ago he was in full support of Jelinski running

for district attorney. He strongly believes that's the reason he was

asked to resign.

Curtis told us he was one of the first people to see Ed Jelinski after the

assistant D.A. was told to leave the building.

"They escorted Ed Jelinski out of the office, and as he went by my office

he says, 'I'm fired,' and that was my first inkling of anything happening.

It totally shocked me," Curtis told us.

Just a few minutes later, Curtis says he, too, was approached by the

district attorney. "He told me he thought it was for the better of the

office if I would leave and asked me to leave voluntarily, and I informed

him at that point I didn't feel I wanted to, I wanted to keep doing the

job."

Since Curtis refused to resign, he said, Paulus planned to ask the chief

of police to remove him from the D.A.'s office.

If he's removed, Curtis says it's only because of his support of Ed

Jelinski.

"To be perfectly honest, I've never voted in my life," Curtis said. "I never

wanted to get invovled in politics, but after just a short time in the D.A.'s

office I felt I had no choice. I did what I felt was the right thing, to back

E.J."

Paulus declined interviews Tuesday, saying the state attorney general's

office advised him against discussing personnel matters.

Action 2 News confirmed last Friday that the FBI is looking into

accusations the district attorney's office accepted money in return for

reducing or dropping charges in drunk driving cases. Paulus has strongly

denied the accusations and said they are a smear campaign by his

political opponents.

Paulus has not yet announced whether he is running for re-election.