“Been practicing criminal defense in Northwestern Wisconsin for 39 years. Never saw this charged once. Not one time.”
942.01 Defamation.
(1) Whoever with intent to defame communicates any defamatory matter to a 3rd person without the consent of the person defamed is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor."
--Lauriethelawyer (from a post in Threads)
That’s ridiculous! As a retired cop, I’d NEVER make a custody arrest on something like this when an official summons, based on actual probable cause, could be issued. The officer should have seen something fishy was going on, and had the guts to say no. It’s not like you’re hiding or anything….
--Sarah Petzold, Retired Wisconsin Police Officer (from a post on Facebook)
Hi Everyone,
This is Kirk Bangstad, owner of the Minocqua Brewing Company, and I am writing to you this morning from my apartment in Madison, Wisconsin, after having been arrested for "criminal defamation" by the Oneida County Sheriff's department three hours north yesterday afternoon.
As you can see in the pictures I hastily took while being detained, I was handcuffed by a police officer in the Town of Minocqua and driven halfway to Rhinelander, then transferred into the squad car of an Oneida County sheriff's deputy, who then took me to the Oneida County jail, where I was held for two hours and charged with 2 counts of "criminal defamation," a misdemeanor.
Because this event happened less than 24 hours ago, I haven't been able to fully comprehend what "criminal defamation" means or how "bad" a crime it is, but I posted two quotes above--the first from a long-serving Wisconsin criminal defense lawyer and the second from a retired Wisconsin police officer--that indicate that this type of arrest has very seldom occurred in Wisconsin and that the act of hauling me to jail in handcuffs seemed extremely heavy-handed.
Here's a video I took immediately before I was handcuffed and here's the link to my Facebook live feed that I made immediately after being released from the Oneida County jail.
My attorney, Fred Melms, told the detectives assigned to my case that we refused to talk to them while I was being detained, and as a result, they refused to tell us any further details about who was pressing these charges and what, exactly, I supposedly had done wrong.
At risk of being sued for defamation yet again, I can only surmise that this arrest for "criminal defamation" stems from my very recent CIVIL settlement of Wisconsin's largest defamation judgment ($750K) against me by Gregg Walker, publisher of what has become one of Wisconsin's most right-wing propaganda rags, the Lakeland Times.
I wrote AT LENGTH about this settlement a few weeks ago, but the gist of what happened is that my insurance company decided to pay Walker about $530K, forcing me to chip in $50K, because my attorneys fees has already climbed to over $1M and they simply didn't want to keep paying to defend me. I agreed to pay my portion of the settlement because Wisconsin's Supreme Court took too long to accept our case and I would have had to spend at least $50K to file for bankruptcy to protect my company while the judgement was being appealed.
What I think just happened yesterday, and this is only a guess (and not intended with any 'actual malice' towards Walker because I prefer to not get sued yet again for defamation), is that someone told Gregg Walker that a criminal defamation statute existed in Wisconsin, and that if he could convince Republican County Sheriff Grady Hartman to use it against me, he could continue to harness the backwoods justice system in Northern Wisconsin that has tied me up in civil litigation over the last 4 years to keep bleeding me dry in legal fees by tying me up, yet again, in lengthy criminal proceedings that wouldn't be covered by my insurance.
In short, I think Gregg Walker used his connections to the "Old Boys Network" in deep red rural Wisconsin to employ Oneida County law enforcement for political retribution--a miniature version of what Trump himself says he plans to do on "Day 1" if elected President.
To say this another way, I believe that what happened to me yesterday is a harbinger of things to come in America if Trump is elected, and a clear example of what American fascism will look like if we don't stop him on November 5th.
Here's a picture of the $50K settlement check that my attorney Fred Melms delivered to Matt Fernholz, Gregg Walker's attorney and Wisconsin Republican Party attack dog--complete with a 4 pack of the beer I made in Fred's honor and a unicorn-themed gift bag.
While this is all very fluid at the moment, the current plan I've made with Fred is to sue Oneida County once again in federal court (Wisconsin's Western District in Madison) for political harassment while he defends me in Oneida County Circuit Court from whatever charges they might bring.
While we haven't scoured Wisconsin's history books quite yet to see how often this "criminal defamation" law has been applied and how blatant this act of political retribution actually was from a historical perspective, the two hours I spent locked up in the Oneida County jail "bullpen" after being handcuffed and placed in the backseat of two squad cars was the last straw for me.
I've been convinced time and time again to settle out of court with both the Town of Minocqua and Oneida County after years of political harassment that has sapped much of my company's profits, simply because I have a healthy business and just want to be left alone--not to make money off of taxpayers in lawsuits against local government.
But this time it's different.
The "Old Boys Network" in Oneida County needs to be sued into oblivion, and they need to lose so badly that the county's legal budget explodes and the entire county becomes uninsurable.
Maybe then, and only then, will the voters in Oneida County wake up and elect fair and honest leaders.
If you agree with me and think that the politics of retribution is patently un-American and a slippery slope to fascism, please help me to fund this lawsuit. Here's a link to my legal defense fund.
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Wisconsin, one of America's most important swing states, has been a laboratory for right-wing extremism for the last two decades. Just look at the private school voucher scam, Act 10 (that broke the back of the teacher's union), our archaic abortion law from 1849, and rampant PFAS water contamination caused by our corrupt pollution lobby.
What they can get away with here they'll try elsewhere in America. Help me stop them so this backwoods fascist cancer doesn't spread any further.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support.
Kirk Bangstad
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company
Founder, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC