Milwaukee police union files ethics complaint against Fire and Police Commission chairman

Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission Chairman Steven DeVougas did not list his ties to a powerful real estate developer's company on documents meant to publicly detail his financial interests, according to an ethics complaint filed by the Milwaukee police union.

The complaint asks the city Ethics Board to investigate other potential violations by DeVougas as well.

Chief among them: That it was wrong for DeVougas to accompany developer Kalan Haywood Sr., his corporate client, to an August interview with a Milwaukee detective investigating a sexual assault allegation against Haywood, since DeVougas chairs the commission that oversees the police department.

On Wednesday, Milwaukee Police Association President Dale Bormann Jr. renewed the union's call for DeVougas to resign. 

DeVougas maintains he has done nothing wrong and said Wednesday he had met with the Ethics Board last Friday as part of his own request for an opinion on his conduct.

He revealed the request at a commission meeting earlier this month, saying he had asked for the ethics opinion "in the spirit of transparency," though he was sure he had done nothing wrong. At the time, he refused to commit to releasing the opinion publicly.

On Wednesday, DeVougas said he did not know when the board would finish its opinion, but noted "it's confidential anyway."

Bormann said the union's complaint was filed to ensure the results of the investigation, whatever they may be, are made public.

The matter will come to a head again Thursday night before the Fire and Police Commission, which is holding a special meeting regarding the selection of an independent investigator to look into two related matters.

The first involves the release of police records regarding the sexual assault allegation against Haywood, which included a video of him being questioned with DeVougas in attendance. The second is whether department rules were broken when police interviewed Haywood at the Sojourner Family Peace Center, which includes a shelter for women who have been assaulted. 

Police are only allowed to question victims, not suspects, at the center, according to Carmen Pitre, president and CEO of Sojourner. 

As authorized by the commission, the pending outside investigation does not cover whether the department treated Haywood differently than any other person accused of sexual assault.

The woman who said Haywood drugged and raped her told police she didn't report it immediately because she was afraid of Haywood's political connections and power in Milwaukee. City elected officials have approved millions of dollars in taxpayer-backed loans for ongoing developments by his company.

Haywood denies the sexual assault allegation and has been neither arrested nor charged. The investigation remains under review by the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office.

Earlier this month, DeVougas rejected a fellow commissioner's call for him to go on administrative leave during the investigation. He said Wednesday he would not be attending the Thursday meeting.

Questions about whether DeVougas properly disclosed his financial ties on the ethics report, known as the Statement of Economic Interest, emerged as part of the complaint filed Tuesday by the police union.

The form must be filed by elected officials and high-level appointees. The forms are based on the idea that the public should know about financial interests, such as investments and other income, to assure an individual is acting in the public interest.

Like members of the Fire and Police Commission, members of the city's Ethics Board are nominated by the mayor and approved by the Common Council.

"It should be noted that failure to disclose to the public any connection to the Haywood Group LLC or Haywood himself is further concerning given that Haywood is significantly connected to City Hall, the Mayor, several aldermen and is well-known in the community," the police union complaint states.

The complaint notes that on the website of the Haywood Group, DeVougas' biography lists him as having joined the firm in 2017 and he has said he was representing the Haywood Group's business interests in the August meeting with police.

DeVougas, who said Wednesday he had not seen the complaint, called the claim "such a reach."

He said his law firm, DeVougas Law Group, had a contract to be "outside general counsel" for the Haywood Group but that he was not an employee of the Haywood Group. He noted that his biography on his own firm's website says he "often" serves in that capacity.

"I'm just annoyed with these people," DeVougas said of the Milwaukee Police Association.

DeVougas has said that as of Jan. 1 he is no longer general counsel for the Haywood Group, though he still has "one or two" cases in which he's representing the group in litigation.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said Wednesday that he wanted to read the union's ethics complaint before commenting on it.

"But I would be very interested in what it had to say," Barrett said.

He repeated his earlier calls for DeVougas to recuse himself from anything involving the issue.

"I have said that I think that Chairman DeVougas should recuse himself from any of the investigations, either into the release of the tape or into anything involving his behavior in this," Barrett said. "And I strongly continue to believe that he cannot and should not be involved in any fashion whatsoever with any of those inquiries."

But Barrett stopped short of calling for DeVougas to step down as chairman of the Fire and Police Commission.

"That does not mean he needs to relinquish his chairmanship at this point," Barrett said. "I want us to continue the inquiry to see what transpires in the inquiry, but I don't want to pass judgment until the inquiry is done."

At the Feb. 6 Fire and Police Commission meeting, DeVougas rejected a fellow commissioner's call for him to go on administrative leave during the investigation and continued to take part in the discussion throughout the meeting after saying he would recuse himself from having "any vote or opinion on the investigations."

One potential candidate recommended by the City Attorney's Office to conduct the investigation will be at Thursday's meeting but it's unclear if commissioners will make a selection. There is a second candidate who is unable to attend the meeting, Deputy City Attorney Miriam Horwitz said.

The police union's complaint also argues that given DeVougas' position as the commission head, his presence at Haywood's police interview was a "clear conflict of interest" and raised questions about whether he was trying to protect his own financial interests. 

"DeVougas' conduct was clearly a violation of the public's trust, misuse and abuse of his public position, and an attempt to obtain personal gain for himself and privileges for Haywood," the complaint states.

DeVougas argued it was not an abuse of power, saying he didn't weigh in during the interview but rather took notes and then recused himself.

He pointed to a memo from the City Attorney's Office saying he did not break any commission rules because those rules "do not address commissioner conflicts of interest, nor do they contain standards of conduct for commissioners. In short, there is no FPC Rule of which we are aware that Mr. DeVougas could have violated."

He also pointed to the decision two weeks ago by the state's Office of Lawyer Regulation not to open a formal investigation into his conduct, though the situation "raised issues that were of concern" to the state office. Ald. Bob Donovan had asked the office for the evaluation.

Bormann said he would be filing his own complaint with the state Office of Lawyer Regulation.

Mary Spicuzza of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Contact Alison Dirr at 414-224-2383 or adirr@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter @AlisonDirr.