“These investigations showed a blatant disregard for the safety of human beings, and arrests must be made and have been made,” Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt said at a news conference.
Two other inmates also died, one from suicide and the other from fentanyl poisoning, the sheriff said, but the conduct did not rise to the level of criminal activity.
The nine defendants include Randall Hepp, warden of the Waupun Correctional Institution, located in the city of the same name, about 55 miles northwest of Milwaukee.
Hepp and three other corrections officers — Jamall Russell, Sarah Ransbottom and Jeramie Chalker — were arrested on charges of misconduct in public office, the sheriff’s office said.
Russell, as well as registered nurses Gwendolyn Peachey and Jessica Hosfelt, and correctional Lt. Brandon Fisher, correctional Sgt. Tanner Leopold and Corrections Sgt. Alexander Hollfelder, were also arrested for abusing correctional facility residents. Most of them face one charge, but Fisher faces two.
The two people whose deaths resulted in criminal charges they were Cameron Williams, the inmate who was found 12 hours after his death, who died Oct. 30 while in a restricted home, the sheriff’s office said. His death was considered a stroke and natural, the office said.
The other was Donald Maier, who died of malnutrition on February 22. His death was ruled a homicide, mainly due to malnutrition and dehydration, Schmidt said.
“As sheriff, I am angered by the way these men were treated and how they died,” Schmidt said.
There were no criminal charges in the deaths of Tyshun Lemons, who died on Oct. 2 from fentanyl toxicity, and Dean Hoffman, who died by suicide on Jan. 29, 2023. Schmidt said there were policy violations surrounding Hoffman’s death, but they did not rise to the level of a crime .
Wisconsin Department of Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy said in a statementt that neither the department nor the state would provide legal representation to any of the nine people charged.
“At this time, all nine individuals against whom criminal charges have been filed no longer work for the department or are on unpaid administrative leave,” the statement said.
The Department of Corrections was also investigating, Hoy said, and all of the defendants except the warden “were either under internal DOC investigation or were placed on administrative leave or fired based on DOC internal investigations.”
An attorney listed in Hepp’s court records did not immediately respond to a voicemail seeking comment Wednesday evening. Court records show a $1,000 bond was set and Hepp has a review hearing scheduled for July 3.
Hosfelt’s attorney, Dan Kaminsky, said he needed to talk to his client before commenting on the case, but said he plans to file a motion asking whether there is probable cause that Hosfelt did something wrong.
Emails and voicemails left for attorneys in most other cases for which attorneys appeared on the record also were not immediately returned.
Waupun Correctional Institution had about 1,001 inmates at the time of the state’s most recent report card for fiscal year 2023. The number of employees that year was 432.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
