Top Stories, February 4th

Hopper Sentenced For Carol’s Tours Embezzlement

2/4/12 - An employee with the shuttered Beaver Dam business Carol’s Tours will be spending some time in prison for her role in the closure of the travel agency. 46-year-old Lisa Hopper entered a “no contest” plea Friday to felony charges of Theft in a Business Setting and Fraudulent Writings. Carol’s Tours shut down in January of 2008 leaving several paid customers without vacations. The owner of the company is also facing charges in connection with the closure. 56-year-old Deborah Paul is charged with two counts of Theft in a Business Setting; her complaint lists 194 people who paid a total of nearly $315,000 for vacations that were never arranged between May of 2007 and February of 2008. She reportedly told investigators that in the years before the agency closed, all of her personal bills were paid by Carol’s Tours, Inc. According to the criminal complaint, Paul described her business practice as (quote) “robbing Peter to pay Paul” using money for future trips to pay for current trips. Lisa Hopper was Paul’s office manager. According to Hopper’s criminal complaint, Paul contacted Beaver Dam police shortly after the business closed to allege that Hopper had been embezzling money, which forced Paul to close the business. Hopper told police that when the business was in danger of having trip tickets cancelled for lack of payment, Paul would reportedly ask her office manager to pay it on her personal credit card and Hopper would be reimbursed the next month. Further investigation revealed that checks from the business were used to pay Hopper’s personal bills. Hopper is believed to have received as much as $90,000 to pay her mortgage, credit cards and even plastic surgery. She still has $72,000 in restitution to pay off. Hopper will have to spend 18 months in prison, three years on extended supervision and seven years on probation. Paul, meanwhile, will be in court for a preliminary hearing on February 13 and faces a total of 20 years in prison, if she is convicted.

BDUSD Custodian Charged In Teen Assault

2/4/12 - The former Beaver Dam School District custodian charged with having a sexual relationship with a high school student had a cash bond set at $5000 during an Initial Appearance Friday. 27-year-old Joseph A. Posthuma has been formally charged with one felony count of Repeated Sexual Assault of the Same Child. According to the criminal complaint, High School Principal Mark DiStefano alerted police Thursday morning about the incident after learning about the encounters from the teen victim. She reportedly met Posthuma at the high school in July of 2010 and the relationship became physical in November of that year with the two having contact between 10 and 15 times over the course of 18 months. Postuma was working at Trenton Elementary at the time of his arrest. During an interview with investigators, Postuma reportedly admitted to the contact and both parties said the encounters were consensual. The victim told investigators that Posthuma tried to break-off the relationship several times but she persisted. Authorities do not believe there are any other victims but they are still investigating. Posthuma has a preliminary hearing on the calendar February 16.

No Injuries In Whitewater Coop Gas Explosion

2/4/12 - A tanker truck and a building were damaged in a propane gas explosion Friday afternoon, but no injuries were reported. A hose being used to transfer propane from a holding tank inside the building to the truck became disconnected, causing the blast at Landmark Services Cooperative on Highway 59 southwest of Whitewater. The worker realized the hose was free and he ran from the building before the explosion. Nobody else was inside at the time. Highway 59 was closed for about two and a half hours during the incident. Big holes were torn in the walls of the building where the explosion happened at about 3 p.m.

Johnson Returns Home

2/4/12 - Hundreds upon hundreds lined the streets of Horicon and Mayville Friday to honor their hometown hero, First Lt. David Johnson, who was killed last week while defending his country in Afghanistan. In Horicon, the downtown was awash in red, white and blue as droves of employees at John Deer joined local students, city workers and residents in lining the streets in a solemn and emotional show of patriotic support. When the motorcade arrived in Johnson’s hometown of Mayville, the procession paused for a moment in front of the American Legion Building for a 21-gund salute. There will be a visitation Saturday at Mayville High School from 1pm to 7pm and again Sunday beginning at noon until a memorial service begins at 2pm. At 4pm, Johnson will be taken to the Veterans Memorial of Mayville in the City Park, where military rights and the flag folding presentation will take place. The public is invited to attend.

Walker To Attend National Guard Sendoffs

2/4/12 - Governor Scott Walker will be in attendance at two sendoff ceremony’s Saturday for Wisconsin National Guard soldiers. The first ceremony is for 130 Army National Guard soldiers from the Oshkosh-based 1157th Transportation Company and will be held at 11am at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Eagle Hangar in Oshkosh. Prior to their deployment overseas, the soldiers will train for several weeks at Camp Shelby in Mississippi. The second one will be held this afternoon in Hartford for several local Wisconsin Army National Guardsmen. Approximately 60 members of the 82nd Agribusiness Development Team, are being deployed to Afghanistan. Their mission is to teach Afghan farmers how to effectively farm and herd to expand their agribusiness, create jobs and reduce poverty. Their sendoff will be held at 2:30pm Saturday at Hartford High School. Both ceremonies are open to the public.

Walker To “Voluntarily” Meet With Investigators

2/4/12 - Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker says he will meet with the district attorney heading the secret investigation leading to charged being filed against former associates. The case was opened 20 months ago and is being handled by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm. The five people charged so far worked for, or were associated with, Walker’s county executive office before he left it to run for governor. Walker says his meeting with Chisholm is voluntary, though when he commented Friday he didn’t say who request the sit-down. Walker’s former deputy chief of staff, Kelly Rindfleisch of Columbus, faces four felony charges. Darlene Wink, Walker’s former county constituent services coordinator, is charged with two misdemeanors of political solicitation by a public employee.

Judge Reverses Recall Signature Ruling

2/4/12 - A state appeals court threw out a judge's order Friday to make election officials remove false-and-duplicate signatures from recall petitions. Waukesha Judge Mac Davis agreed last month that Governor Scott Walker's campaign and the state G-O-P should not have to find improper signatures on their own, and then ask the Government Accountability Board to remove them. But the Fourth District Appellate Court in Madison said Davis should have allowed recall groups to intervene in the case. Davis said there wasn't time for that before the petitions had to be filed on January 17th -- and he said the Accountability Board would adequately argue the same points as the recall groups. Now, the case goes back to Davis, who will have to let the recall groups make their argument for the status quo. If they prevail, it means that Walker, the lieutenant governor, and four G-O-P senators including Senator Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau would have to dig up their own evidence of illegal signatures -- and then ask the state to rule them invalid. Republicans say they've found numerous examples of fraud while reviewing the Walker petitions. One signer from Milwaukee identified himself as the movie character "E-T." And one page of petitions had signers giving Saint Nazianz and South Milwaukee the same zip code -- even though they're dozens of miles apart.

Kleefisch Petitions Online

2/4/12 - Persons signing petitions for the recall of Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch can find their signatures online. The Government Accountability Board says while voting is private, signing a recall petition is public. GAB staff scanning more than 140 thousand pages of signatures supporting Kleefisch’s recall and posted them online yesterday. They were handed over to a representative of the lieutenant governor at the same time. The board says the signatures are being released under the Wisconsin open records law.

No Charges Against Shopper Who Stopped Robbery

2/4/12 - No charges will be filed against a Milwaukee grocery shopper who shot and wounded a man who was trying to rob the place. District Attorney John Chisholm said Friday that the law allows reasonable force in a threatening situation, whether-or-not the shooter has a concealed weapons permit. Chisholm said 35-year-old Nazir Al-Mujaahimid of Milwaukee disrupted an act that could have exposed himself and others to great harm -- and he acted reasonably and in a controlled manner. The incident occurred Monday night while Al-Mujaahimid and his wife were shopping at an Aldi's store on Milwaukee's northwest side. The man told reporters he was never in the store before -- and he said he was just doing what he had to do. The two alleged robbers left with nothing. Both are in custody but have not been charged yet. Al-Mujaahimid said he's a gun rights supporter with a concealed weapons' permit. And had he realized the store not allowed guns, he would have shopped somewhere else. He's an Internet marketer, and he started a Web site to share his experience and what people can learn from it. The address is ccwAdvocates-Dot-Com.