MILWAUKEE COPS CONVICTED IN SPREE OF ILLEGAL BODY CAVITY SEARCHES

Three dumb cops stood by and did nothing to stop Officer Michael Vagnini from conducting a series of illegal body cavity searches. Now their police careers are over and done with.

WHITE EX-MILWAUKEE COPS SLAPPED WITH $300 FINES FOR STRING OF ILLEGAL CAVITY PROBES INFLICTED ON BLACK DRUG SUSPECTS
The string of assaults lasted two years and some victims were probed so hard they bled

By Eddie Wrenn

Mail Online
December 31, 2013

Two white ex-Milwaukee police officers have been given $300 fines for their roles in a sordid string of illegal anal cavity probes inflicted on male suspects, all of whom were black.

Six months after ringleader Michael Vagnini was sentenced to just 26 months in prison for the crimes, Jeffrey Dollhopf and Brian Kozelek were given the small fine and ordered to perform 100 hours and 20 hours respectively of community service.

Both officers pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct as a party to the crime in October and quit the police department in early December as part of a plea agreement.

The pair were facing a maximum sentence of 90 days in jail but their attorneys stressed that neither were ever charged with ordering or conducting the strip searches. They were, however, present when the grim probes took place.

According to the Journal Sentinel, prosecutors said in the proceedings that the two men should have acted to stop Vagnini, who been sentenced to just over two years in prison.

Vagnini, who is also white, pleaded no contest to four felonies and four misdemeanors for inflicting abhorrently invasive cavity searches on dozens of male drug suspects.

A fourth officer, Jacob Knight, took a plea deal in which he agreed to resign from the department and was sentenced in October to 20 days in jail, 60 hours of community service and a $300 fine.

According to The Journal Sentinel, one victim said that an officer put a gun to his head while Vagnini administered a choke hold, touched his scrotum and put his fingers in his anus. Another man was probed so violently that he bled, a court heard.

Wisconsin law clearly prohibits police officers from administering cavity searches. Only medical professionals may do so, and only when authorized by a warrant.

But Vagnini even conducted the illegal search a 15-year-old boy, touching his anus and genitals during a traffic stop in December of 2011. The JS documented at least a dozen similar instances of Vagnini performing invasive, illegal searches on black men.

The assaults happened over two years, according to a criminal complaint.

The victims, identified only by their initials, told prosecutors the officers searched them between February 2010 and February 2012.

Prosecutors say the stories are strikingly similar: The men allege that Vagnini stopped them, placed his hand down their pants and probed their anus or shifted their genitals, saying he was looking for drugs.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm charged Vagnini with 25 counts, including conducting an illegal strip search, misconduct in office, sexual assault and conducting an illegal body cavity search.

One of the victims testified under oath that officers stopped him in July 2011.

Vagnini pinched his anus, causing him to yell out 'Man, what are you doing? Don't touch me like that! You can't be doing that!' Vagnini replied with words to the effect of 'Be a man and give it up.'

Vagnini took the man to a room in a district police station, throwing a box in the room and told him if he defecated once in the box he would let him go.

The man tried to comply, investigators said in the complaint, but couldn't and was released with a ticket for driving with a suspended license.

Officers Dollhopf and Kozelek were in the room but did nothing to stop the proceedings and didn't report Vagnini to a supervisor, the complaint said.

A similar scenario allegedly took place that September, when Vagnini took a man he stopped to a room in the same police station after saying 'I want to see what he's got in his butt.'

He allegedly inserted his finger into the man's anus, prompting the man to call out 'This ain't right! Call my attorney!'

Vagnini then told the man to get the drugs out on his own, gave him a garbage can and had the man push the drugs out and place them into the can.

The complaint did not specify what type of drugs the man was hiding but said Dollhopf and Officer Jacob Knight were in the room and didn't try to stop Vagnini or report him.

Another victim testified that, in February, Vagnini saw him coming out of his aunt's house, cuffed him, and then searched his anus.

When the man tried to pull away, Vagnini put him in a chokehold. Two officers held his arms and one pressed a gun to his head, the victim said.

Chief Edward Flynn is under fire following the abhorrent scandal.

He told reporters at the time: 'Quite frankly I'm disgusted by the willful action of some of the officers of our police department.

'And I'm appalled by the willful inaction of some other officers in our police department in failing to stop egregious conduct. There's no justification for this.'