AG moves top investigator out of job
Madison — Attorney General Brad Schimel moved the state’s top investigator into a new job Thursday, two days after his office made available records showing the Department of Justice was slow to follow up on the complaints of a special agent who said she faced retaliation.
Dave Matthews had been the head of the Division of Criminal Investigation but was moved Thursday into the newly created position of policy initiative adviser, according to Schimel spokesman Johnny Koremenos. Matthews’ annual salary of $119,000 is not being changed.
The transfer was made because Schimel wanted a “different management style” at the state investigative agency, Koremenos said in an email. Matthews was not disciplined as part of the personnel investigation and his transfer is not related to it, Koremenos said.
But the attorney for the employee who filed internal complaints said Matthews was at the root of bad management practices at the Division of Criminal Investigation.
"It was an extremely toxic working environment there and a lot of it stemmed from Dave Matthews," said attorney Colin Good. "It all seemed to point back to him."
Good said he represented at least one other Division of Criminal Investigation employee who had difficulties with Matthews.
"He seemed to foster a lot of distrust among his employees," Good said of Matthews. "He seemed to pick sides a lot."
Matthews declined to comment.
Deputy Administrator Jason Smith is running the Division of Criminal Investigation for now. The division will seek applicants for a full-time administrator soon, Koremenos said.
The division is responsible for investigating crimes of statewide interest. It often investigates police shootings, such as the August shooting ofSylville Smith in Milwaukee.
For a year, the division was the lead agency looking into potential abuses at the state's youth prisons, Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls. The Federal Bureau of Investigation took over that probe early this year.
As part of the job change, Matthews had his badg and state vehicle taken from him, according to the Department of Justice. The switch to the new job was so abrupt that Matthews had to get a ride home Thursday because he had driven his state vehicle to work that morning.
Matthews got his new post this week, two days after the Department of Justice released records to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel showing the agency made changes to how it responds to personnel issues after finding fault with how they were handled under Matthews.
The employee — whose name has been blacked out from the records released to the newspaper — filed an initial complaint in late 2014 against Special Agent James Pertzborn. Pertzborn, who declined to comment, received a letter of reprimand in August 2015 “for engaging in actions that would appear to be intended to alienate the employee from others in the same work unit.”
The employee followed that up with a subsequent complaint alleging that the harassment investigation took too long and caused her to face retaliation; that she was given unfair employee evaluations and more scrutiny than other employees; and that she was wrongly denied a transfer to a different work site for a time.
Among the employee’s complaints were that Matthews had added a handwritten comment to her employee evaluation after the employee had reviewed and signed it. One human resources official called that approach “highly irregular,” according to the documents released under the state's public records law this week.
Investigators found Matthews had ordered the employee to immediately leave an Eau Claire office and drive to Madison in October 2015 because of a misunderstanding. The employee had driven to Eau Claire to work with another agent on training and drop off her belongings at a time when she was planning to transfer from the Madison office to the one in Eau Claire.
Matthews and the employee disagreed on whether the transfer had been approved at that point. She initially believed she would have a year to move to the area and could commute from her home near Wisconsin Dells in the meantime. Matthews required her to move more quickly and he would not approve her transfer until the issue was resolved.
As the disagreement played out, the employee spent $3,000 to winterize a trailer she had near Eau Claire so she could move more quickly while she tried to sell her home.
This summer, DOJ officials determined no one needed to be disciplined for the employee’s second set of complaints, the records show. But they also decided to make changes to how the agency conducts personnel investigations as a result of that investigation.
According to two memos, Deputy Attorney General Andrew Cook approved changes so that personnel investigations will be conducted more efficiently; employee evaluations will be finalized before they are presented to employees; and human resources officials will review employee policies at the Division of Criminal Investigation.
“DCI policies are not accessible to human resources staff at this time and no HR staff are familiar with them or have read them,” Cook wrote in a June memo. “I recommend we start with the new residency policy and ensure the written word of the policy matches the division's intent.”
Cook also ordered that supervisors must consult with human resources officials before issuing employees “letters of direction,” which are a step below letters of reprimand. That order also requires supervisors to interview any witnesses before writing letters of direction.
In his new job, Matthews will "conduct complex policy analysis ... (and) manage DOJ’s continuity of government and continuity of operations planning," Schimel wrote in a Thursday email to staff.
"Given his long experience in law enforcement, organizational skills and interest in cyber crime, I know that Dave will be a great asset to DOJ in this new role," his email said.
As he often does, Schimel signed off his email to staff with "KAED," which stands for "kick ass every day." Schimel has adopted the phrase as the Department of Justice's motto, Koremenos said.
Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
Editor's note: An earlier posted version of this story incorrectly said officials took Mathews' gun. State officials took Matthews' state-issued vehicle, but not his gun because he personally owned the weapon.