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A high-speed car chase occurred on rain-slick streets in Viroqua, on Nov. 16. After the chase ended, a 41-year-old Viroqua man was charged with two felonies by police.

The man, a convicted felon who previously served five years in state prison on other charges, is now facing two felony charges as a repeat offender for first degree reckless endangerment of public safety and attempting to elude a police officer. Both felony charges represent a maximum punishment of 16 years in prison and fines totaling $35,000. He was released on a $1,000 cash bond, and has an initial appearance in court scheduled for the morning of Jan. 27.

A 52-year-old Wisconsin man was taken into custody after employees of his father’s residential facility witnessed a fight between the two men and called the police. Reports of the incident were unclear as to the extent of the father’s disability, but the man was charged with abuse to an at-risk individual as well as disorderly conduct.

In order to place someone under arrest, police officers need to have probable cause. This means that you cannot be arrested unless officers have a level of suspicion based on objective evidence that makes it reasonable to suspect you have probably committed a crime or are about to commit a crime.

However, there are certain limited circumstances in which you may be lawfully stopped by police without the encounter amounting to an arrest. One of these special situations is when you are the occupant of a house that the police are searching or are about to search under the authority of a valid warrant.

Gambling machines in the Milwaukee area are being scammed by some of their patrons, but prosecuting the scammers is difficult. The gambling machines are illegal in Wisconsin, and in some situations the theft is going unpunished.

A Wisconsin woman convicted of four federal crimes could be in violation of the conditions of her release because of what police allegedly found in her home. Law enforcement from three agencies claim to have seized more than $750,000 in cash along with synthetic drugs, suspected marijuana, ammunition, high-capacity magazines and body armor. The terms of her release from custody included a ban on possession of any controlled substance and a ban on having firearms, destructive devices or weapons.

Authorities reportedly found the items on Dec. 18 in a search of the woman’s home in Superior. The search was done through a joint operation by officers from the Superior Police Department, the Duluth Police Department and the Lake Superior Drug and Violent Crime Task Force, both from Duluth, Minnesota. She shares the home with a man who was convicted on Oct. 7 for selling synthetic drugs from his Duluth store. Authorities said that they had not decided if they would file additional charges.

Police said that they searched the home because of information that they obtained after the man’s conviction. They also claim to have seized around $183,000 from his home in April. Although the home itself is not on the judge’s order of assets that authorities can seize, they can seize some of its contents, including cash. The judge’s order, which will become final at his sentencing, also authorizes the seizure of the man’s store, vacation property in Mexico and $3.5 million from bank accounts.

The man’s lawyers plan to appeal his federal convictions to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. Convictions of those who are accused of having committed drug crimes may be overturned through the appeals process if new evidence is obtained. A conviction might also be overturned if it can be proven that a search was conducted without regard to the rights of the accused.

Source: Grand Forks Herald, “Cash seized from Wisconsin home of synthetic drug dealer”, Tom Olsen , December 19, 2013

On Dec. 10, a Wisconsin man, 30, was sentenced to more than a decade in federal prison for his participation in a drug ring that trafficked cocaine and marijuana as far south as Texas. He was supposedly part of the Balderas Organization, a group accused of transporting a minimum of 10 pounds of cocaine and thousands of pounds of marijuana. He was in charge of the Wisconsin operation and involved in drug distribution and money laundering.