The former lawyer of Milwaukee City, dreamer Spencer, in criminal proceedings for procedures

The former lawyer of Milwaukee City, Dreamer Spencer, took place on Wednesday in a criminal proceedings in which he is charged with having used his public position to maintain an “dishonest advantage” in a dispute with a different city department about a facility in which his cars were stored.

His lawyer William Sulton also unsuccessfully requested that the charges during the preliminary hearing on Wednesday, in which two investigators of the district prosecutor were called.

In Binding Spencer for court hearing, the court commissioner JC Moore said that the disagreement in this case did not exist whether Spencer exercised the authority to measure that he held as a civil servant in an argument with the Ministry of State for Neighborhood Services. Rather, said Moore, between law enforcement and the defense as to whether Spencer exercised this power in a way that is incompatible with the tasks of his office and whether he did this to maintain an dishonest advantage.

The 68 -year -old Spencer was charged in October in the Milwaukee County Court Court due to official deficiency, crime and a number of disability of an official, an offense. The accusations together have a maximum punishment of more than four years in prison and fines of up to 20,000 US dollars.

In the criminal complaint, he is accused of steering employees and resources from the public prosecutor in order to help himself and the owner of a building in which his cars were stored in order to avoid thousands of dollars of fees and repairs that are required by the Department of Neighborhood Services, and to avoid inspections of his personal property.

When explaining his decision, Moore referred to a memo that Spencer was accused of ordering the prosecutor's public prosecutor's office for production and that the building owner later contested the need for an occupancy permit.

“The state has announced that he had members of his office fashion the memo so that (IT) can be used by the owner of property to dissuade DNS and inure to its advantage,” said Moore. “The defense says: 'No, it was just a completely innocent thing, and for the public prosecutor it was completely common to generate a memorandum essentially that is committed to a legal problem for a member of the public.” That is two competing conclusions. “

And while Moore said he did not have to determine which version of events was true, he said that he had “clearly seen a conclusion that matched the evidence and Spencer's mandate of a crime.

“Whether there is still something or not is something for a process,” he said.

His comments followed a contemporary hearing, in which the deputy administrative prosecutor Nicolas Heitman and Sulton questioned the investigators of the DA office, and the lawyers each rejected the other questions of the other.

The defense did not call witnesses.

The complaint stated that Spencer intervened several times on behalf of the owner of the building with city officials, including with an inspector who enacted violations, personally appeared during an inspection and ordered the lawyer's employees to present the memo.

In 2023, the Journal Sentinel first reported when Milwaukee City inspectors regarding the obvious non -authorized repair work and other violations of the code in a poorly maintained building in the north side, they received a letter about the property of the public prosecutor, in which the building owner had excluded him from obtaining a necessary occupancy permit.

According to the complaint, Spencer previously asked his top deputy Odalo Ohiku to have a lawyer in the office: “Whether this registration is necessary if this property is used as a storage facility for cars. And if not, what is, if at all.” A deputy lawyer of the city then designed the document entitled “Vacant Building Car Storage Memo”.

With the survey of Heitman, the deputy investigator said that the deputy investigator of Thomas Meverden asked that he asked Ohiku whether it was appropriate for the public prosecutor to give a citizen legal work or opinions, and Ohiku said that the office had worked for city departments and should not offer the general public. He said Ohiku didn't know that Spencer was involved in the underlying situation that triggered the creation of the memos.

Sulton tried to undermine the case of the public prosecutor, partly argued that the memo was informal and that Ohiku and the deputy city administration Ohiku, who was to write, was not instructed to write it in a way that should convince them.

Heitman argued that Spencer, although he did not lead the result, had held back “critical” information about his own participation in ownership when he stated that his employees stated that the memo.

“He has a business relationship with the owner of this property. He will benefit financially from the work product,” said Heitman. “And whether he led a result into the memo or not, he only provided information that would be his advantage.”

And, he said, Spencer's actions did not match his duties, since he presented the memo to a private person's opinion of the Ministry of Neighborhood Services, his client as a public prosecutor.

When asked that the case is released, Sulton said that the memo was not a binding legal opinion, but an informal document.

“The proof is that the memo has not been sent to DNS or anyone who proves it to do something,” he said.

Spencer is also accused

The public prosecutor is responsible for the legal representation of the city departments and the provision of legal guidance. When Spencer was a city administration, under his photo on the website of the office was a announcement that expressly prohibits the lawyers of the public prosecutor to give someone other than the city of legal advice.

His next court date is April 11th.

Spencer was elected to his first term in 2020 and spent four years in office before lost his offer for a second term in April.

Alison Dirr can be reached at adirr@jrn.com.

This article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Former lawyer of Milwaukee City, dreamer Spencer