The following account is one of a series of essays that exposes corrupt Milwaukee lawyers to the public. Infused with guilt and shame, to a man they remain silent. Suddenly a woman emerges to break the silence.
She insists that I stop telling this story.
It is my obligation and privilege to continue to tell her story and mine. It should scythe through the lies and sear undeserved reputations.
The accomplice
A Racine, USA lawyer has known for years that a vengeful, sadistic lawyer double-crossed his client and organised a staged trial to protect colleagues. Margaret O’Connor participated in a trial that allowed a malicious lawyer to replace legal due process with an imposter.
Lawyer O’Connor’s chooses to conceal lawyer misconduct at the expense of personal integrity because she fears her fellow lawyers more than me.
That dynamic has to change; that choice can no longer be hers.
My story is her story. That’s why O’Connor wants it kept quiet. She deserves a Sean P. Diddy Combs moment.
There ought to be a video.
***
“It’s too long ago… some of the people involved are dead,” O’Connor protests. “No one listens to you.”
“But you’re still around,” I objected, unwilling to let her dodge pass. “And you’re obviously listening.”
“It’s too long ago.”
No, not really, lawyer O’Connor
The child forced to pull down their pants at age eight in fear of the towering priest remembers the day – dewy-eyed and disconsolate in their recall even now. They shouldn’t expect the offence to be excused by the passage of time, nor have their right to be heard denied.
Some storytellers wait 10, 20 even 30 years to be heard. Would anyone demand that a woman raped as a child stop telling her story because it’s long ago? The offender would.
Holocaust survivors tell their stories until death. They need to; storytelling is mental medicine. And people need their medicine.
Why is Lawyer O’Connor opposed to a story that exposes legal system corruption? Because she’s featured in it. She offended but doesn’t want to be called-out as an offender.
What does law enforcement tell us when a criminal is apprehended years later? “Justice has prevailed.” Why do judges demand remorse from a guilty party? “The victim deserves closure.”
Check with local police to confirm expiration dates on crimes, lawyer O’Connor. There is no expiration date on the truth.
“Some of the people involved are dead.”
Yes, and so what?
Some people have died, but not you Lawyer O’Connor.
This story resonates beyond the lawyers involved. It has civic and legal repercussions. With people dead it’s still a parable on the basest of lawyer corruption. This story is a description of legal system failure and fraud.
It’s an example of how lawyer wrongdoing is concealed, and how corrupt lawyers are protected from accountability.
I want the names exposed, dead or not.
They are: Kohler; Hansher; Matestic; Frenn; Elliott; O’Connor. These men and one woman exploited the credibility of the legal system to avoid accountability for themselves and colleagues.
“No one listens to you.”
If that’s true, Lawyer O’Connor, then why are you concerned? You’re obviously listening.
Other lawyers are listening. They’re also uncomfortable seeing their ethical excrement float by in a stream of public awareness. Such a sight could typically be kept from view. Local lawyers could conceal evidence and use financial pressure to keep a story of local legal system corruption from the public.
“No outside jurisdiction must ever review this case.” The ironic words of prosecutor Fred Matestic, who lied to the jury.
Contrary to Matestic’s wish, concealing Milwaukee lawyer corruption in the foreign jurisdiction where I now reside doesn’t have the priority that it has in Milwaukee, USA. Bad luck puts Milwaukee lawyer dysfunction on display anywhere around the world … with no expiration date … no way to shut the exposition down. (www.markinglin.com/blog)
Some time ago I caught lawyer O’Connor with her guard down. She made a brief admission, explaining that, “I was young and inexperienced.” Since that hint of truth she has lawyered-up.
Other lawyers, e.g. lawyer Robert Elliott, Thomas Frenn and Fred Matestic, impress O’Connor with the importance of loyalty to the lawyer tribe.
An exaggeration by this author? Unsubstantiated? Not at all. Lawyer Elliott in fact hauled lawyer Lawyer Mark Murphy before a judge to shut Murphy up after he wrote a letter of support for me. Murphy claimed that he had also seen unethical activities on the part of Lawyer Martin Kohler in the past. Murphy got the message just like Lawyer O’Connor has. He and she turned quiet in a hurry.
What lawyer O’Connor deserves is a Sean P. Diddy Combs video moment.
The infamous CNN video, showing Mr. Combs brutally attacking a woman, shocked Combs as much as viewers. Eight years of well-maintained, lawyer-assisted lies came crashing down after he saw himself as himself.
I don’t have a video of the staged trial that O’Connor participated in, Such scenes could also astonish and disgust not just viewers but O’Connor herself. She lives in the State of Denial, where lawyers alone usually reign … but not this time, not as this story makes the rounds.
Courtroom procedure approved by Lawyer Margaret O’Connor – surreptitiously: Highlights from a staged trial.
O’Connor sat primly at Martin Kohler’s side during the trial. Serving as Kohler’s paralegal, eighteen months of familiarity with the evidence and potential defence witnesses afforded her a comparative perspective as she watch the courtroom proceedings.
Kohler had used his 18 months to coerce a plea bargain. Well seasoned and with a reputation as an effective lawyer, Kohler nevertheless wasn’t a trial lawyer. His skillset comprised promising a trial while simultaneously manoeuvring the client toward a plea bargain. He coupled unethical psychological tactics with outright lies. This ploy was not unique among defence lawyers and would doubtless fail review by anyone but lawyers. Kohler then parlayed his efforts into the claim that he had gotten the best deal possible.
In the case at issue here Kohler failed badly.
The plea bargain Kohler insisted on would have spared his colleagues exposure and accountability at a trial. He chose loyalty to other lawyers over his own client, not a unique circumstance among lawyers.
Kohler’s efforts to undermine his client’s choice to go to trial included scheduling phoney hearings and even trial dates. These were repeatedly cancelled close to the arranged times, raising anxiety levels for the client, angering and frustrating defence witnesses but tolerated by the prosecutor and the judge. The idea was to also create pressure from outside to garner a plea bargain.
“Your refusal to plea bargain leaves the child’s safety at risk,” Kohler often threatened. “Not revealing the horrendous abuse by an ill mother harms both her and the child,” I countered unfailingly.
Exasperated by his failure to convince me to relinquish my right to a trial for his convenience, Kohler staged a mock trial, with private detective Tanya and paralegal O’Connor acting as jurors. The intent was to show the futility of going to trial.
“You will lose,” Kohler contended.
His was a pathetic display. It lasted about an hour, billed at 7,000 dollars. Both shills, O’Connor and Tanya, were clueless. They relied on Kohler’ gestures to voice opinions, supposedly in line with the average female juror. I knew that a juror, male or female, would understand a father’s passion and legal responsibility to protect his son.
Lawyer Kohler was accustomed to getting his way with clients. He had built his reputation in Milwaukee on that. His self-regard came to rely heavily on mastery over his clients. Judge Hansher also favoured a plea bargain. He winked at Kohler’s use of 18 months to replace a promised speedy trial.
Now Kohler faced a personal failure – a trial for which he had done all he could to avoid. He didn’t know how to cope, other than to turn extreme resentment against his client.
Kohler raged one last time and threatened me with Waupun prison just before trial. Again, no success, but Kohler plotted his revenge.
I hadn’t known then that paralegal O’Connor was Kohler’s shill. Her role, as became evident, was to reassure me that the delays, the missed deadlines, the angering and undermining of witnesses and the broken promises were part of a time-tested legal strategy. It was to portended a successful grand finale resulting from Kohler’s outstanding legal acumen. I regularly swallowed O’Connor’s poison pills.
Bolting to another lawyer would be foolish, she confirmed, merely costing money and causing even more delay.
“Marty knows what he’s doing; it’s his strategy. You’ll see. You need to trust him.”
During jury selection the sole, eligible black juror – approved and ready to serve – was inexplicably replaced. A white juror, a personal friend of Kohler, was seated on the jury, also inexplicably. The substitution served no legitimate purpose but was openly approved by Judge Hansher. There could have been one black juror; instead there were none.
I asked Kohler later, after trial, why the black male wasn’t seated on the jury. His reply was a dagger, a message directly at me, his final, deliberate, mean-spirited confrontation to assure his dominance and make his pay-back as painfully evident as possible.
Kohler explained that, “surprising as it may seem, blacks actually have deep feelings about child abuse and respect those who would try to stop it.” He stared at me. That was my defence lawyer saying: Fuck you, buddy. See where crossing me has got you? I eliminated any chance you might have had of being acquitted.
But it was not the only chance for my acquittal that my defence lawyer had eliminated.
Kohler had refused to provide the court with a witness list. He ensured that no defence witnesses could appear at the trial. He also refused to provide defence evidence – any defence evidence. including medical records and testimony by a child care worker who knew of the child’s suffering.
In coordination with the prosecutor, Kohler informed the jury that the punishment that they would render his client was deserved. He supported the conviction sought by the prosecutor.
Kohler had himself gone criminal right there in court, in front of O’Connor’s eyes. She and I both knew it. She dares not recall that today; I can do nothing but.
The prosecutor, Fred Matestic, took his cue from Kohler. As Kohler had agreed in advance to conceal defence evidence, including two year’s worth of complaints of the child suffering to lawyers, the guardian, to judges and filed in court records, Matestic felt free to flat-out lie to the jury. His false claim that the defendant provided no evidence, with no history of complaints, convinced the jury and bolstered an accusation of the defendant’s mental illness.
What kind of a defendant presents no defence evidence, yet goes to trial?
The answer to that question may have arisen spontaneously. Matestic and the judge promoted the defendant’s mental illness as the explanation for the bizarre trial. Later, to prove their unfounded theory, falsified mental health report were submitted to the court record as official. Lawyer Robert Elliott, hired by Kohler, spread the lies of mental illness, among others, to local lawyers and media.
Medical information pointing to a deeply ailing mother who suffered a mental disorder, e.g. attempting to have unnecessary surgery performed on the child under false pretences, never reached the jury because Kohler refused to call the guardian ad litem, Tom Frenn, to testify. Frenn had been informed of the child’s abuse and ignored the warnings. He wasn’t unhappy about not appearing in court. He didn’t want to face criticism for negligence in his duties to the child.
The yawning gap between what paralegal O’Connor witnessed in that courtroom and what she had seen and heard for 18 months – and that Kohler had concealed – would have struck anyone as foul and rotted, legal training or no. But young Margaret firmly stuck to the fetid mucilage that oozed from her boss.
Following the trial, Kohler refused to see me or assist in the legally required post conviction relief. I asked O’Connor to help. She refused to consider that she could register an objection to the misbegotten proceedings, bearing witness to the truth. Instead, the opposite. She defended Kohler and rejected any criticism, as if she were a victim of the Stockholm syndrome, and sleeping with Kohler for career advancement were all that mattered.
And that is what has not changed about Margaret, the inability to understand the ethical requirements of her profession, an inability to face and contradict the hierarchy. Whether she ever had a moral upbringing, Kohler subverted it handsomely and it has remained twisted for these years.
More than legal malpractice
There was more than malpractice. Kohler’s revenge, as a malicious, sadistic extension beyond the law, was seen by and excused or exacerbated by several lawyers and not least by Judge Hansher. He imposed a prohibition of contact with my son from age five to 18. It was also Hansher’s revenge, for me forcing him to conduct a corrupt trial in his courtroom.
And O’Conner wants me to stop telling this story?
In an effort to conceal what Hansher had permitted, he blamed the verdict on the defendant, for going to trial, and announced to the public that the defendant suffered from mental deficiencies. He did this with the full knowledge that years of court records showed otherwise. The blatancy shown by Hansher, Kohler and Matestic, in consideration of official documentation to the contrary, exhibited the problem perfectly. All three relied on colleagues who would aid in concealing the corruption. That task fell specifically to appellate lawyer Steve Glynn, who did what lawyers do: he promised to reveal evidence of obvious malpractice and corruption to gain the retainer and additional fees, then, at the last possible moment, refused to do so.
“Don’t tell me what the law is; tell me who the judge is”
When it was shown conclusively to Glynn that Hansher had misled the public with false accusation of mental illness, as court approved psychological reports had refuted, Glynn suggested that we should not disclose this in court as “Hansher might get angry.”
Enough!
When I finally left the USA for a foreign jurisdiction, I continued to expose Milwaukee legal system corruption (www.beyond-outrage.com). In return, Milwaukee lawyers provided false information to Interpol, the international policing agency, claiming that I was “armed and dangerous” for their issuance of a Red Notice.
Upon investigation, Interpol discovered that the information provided was politically motivated, just as China and Russia are often accused, but this time the fraud was supported by our government. Interpol notified me in a letter that all information provided by the USA government had been removed and my name cleared.
Milwaukee lawyers also contacted my employer, the University of Basel, Switzerland, where I lectured and edited research papers in the Chemistry Department. They provided the same false information in an effort to have my employment terminated.
If the reader is overwhelmed, confused and astonished by this information, the circumstances did no less to me. The explanation for this corrupt conduct resides in power imbalance and groupthink, along with a healthy dose of fear.
No one is much surprised to learn that nests of dirty cops exist, and we know intimidation plays a role. The same is true of nests of corrupt lawyers. Kohler and Hansher nurtured such a nest in Milwaukee. If a lawyer dared expose the unethical or illegal activity of a brother in the legal profession, the reward for fighting for justice wouldn’t be a pay check, but the loss of a career for being a whistleblower. (see again above, Lawyer Robert Elliott).
As an average Milwaukee citizen I had no influence in lawyer tribal politics. But Hansher and Kohler did, and they had a lot of it. There appeared only upside for lawyers to remain silent and protect Hansher and Kohler, only downside trouble for defending a child and unholding the law.
The odds of this story emerging? Astronomically small. The unluckiest two days for the lawyers mentioned here were when they decided to side with the devil instead of their ethical obligations, and the day I flew to Europe, outside of their corrupt control of the legal environment.
What is somewhat surprising is the extent to which others helped Hansher and Kohler cover up their deeds. Contacting Interpol, for God’s sake? Harassing the University of Basel to have me removed?
Someone besides O’Connor must have felt this story had to be stopped.
In the end, why did these lawyers violate their mandates, ethics and the law? Because they could. Because someone let them. And just like the criminals that they are, they thought they could get away with it.
It will remain my obligation and privilege to expose corrupt Milwaukee lawyers and their methods to the public through my writings.
More details in the book Beyond-Outrage (www.beyond-outrage.com) and Lawyers Broken Bad (www.lawyersbrokenbad.com) and on this blog (www.markinglin.com/blog)
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