(Corrupt WI AG) Lautenschlager To Reimburse State For Some Mileage

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ^ | 03/26/2004 | Gina Barton

[ServesURight]

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Lautenschlager to reimburse state for some mileage

By GINA BARTON
gbarton@journalsentinel.com

Posted: March 26, 2004

Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager said today that she plans to reimburse the state for "something less than 2,000" miles that she placed on her state car last year.

State Attorney General

Photo/File

State Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager.

Recent Coverage

Reaction: Lautenschlager flooded with words of support after arrest
Ethics Board: Use of car comes under scrutiny (3/3/04)
Punishment: AG's penalty falls in middle (3/10/04)
Personal travel: Lautenschlager told to reimburse state (3/4/04)
Ethics Board: No ruling yet on top cop's state car use (3/24/04)
Penalty: Lautenschlager to give state two weeks' pay (3/2/04)
Doyle: Suggests Lautenschlager forgo pay (2/27/04)
Plea: Lautenschlager pleads guilty, apologizes (2/26/04)
Video: Lautenschlager apologizes in news conference (2/26/04)
Questions: Lautenschlager's mission at hearing derailed (2/25/04)
Editorial: Trouble for state's top cop (2/25/04)
Snapshots: Attorney general is alive to drive again; others are not (2/25/04)
Arrest: Lautenschlager accused of drunken driving (2/24/04)

Arrest Report

Sheriff's department arrest report (pdf)

Arrest Video

Lautenschlager's field sobriety test

Those miles represent personal use of the vehicle, while the rest of the nearly 20,000 miles Lautenschlager logged last year were for official use she said during a meeting with the Journal Sentinel's editorial board.

A drunken driving arrest on Feb. 24 launched a state Ethics Board investigation into Lautenschlager's use of the car, which she drove off Highway 151 in Dodge County while driving home to Fond du Lac from Madison, where she had been drinking with friends.

Shortly after her arrest, the Journal Sentinel reported that she had not reimbursed the state for any personal miles on her car in 2003, including commuting between Madison and Fond du Lac. She has said she used her state car to drive home to Fond du Lac when she had official business the next day at an outstate location.

Her spokesman told the Journal Sentinel that Fond du Lac was her "headquarters" city, meaning all of her driving was considered to be for official business. She has since said that she never declared Fond du Lac her headquarters.

The state Department of Administration asked her to review her records and file updated mileage reports if needed.

Ethics Board officials have not yet announced the results of their investigation but have said they will meet Monday.

Lautenschlager pleaded guilty to first-offense drunken driving, paid a fine of $784 and returned $3,250 - the equivalent of 10 days' pay - to the state. Her driver's license was suspended, and she has given up her state vehicle.

During her meeting with Journal Sentinel editors and reporters, Lautenschlager said she is not an alcoholic, but rather someone who had made a bad decision to drive after drinking two glasses of wine. She would not say whether she had completed a court-ordered alcohol evaluation or whether she was receiving treatment.

Some have questioned whether she had only two glasses of wine, because a preliminary breath test showed her blood-alcohol level to be 0.12, or above the state's legal limit of 0.08. Experts say she would have had to consume more alcohol to reach the 0.12 level.

More complete coverage of this story will appear online later today and in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in the morning.

[CSM]

She certainly shoule be fired as AG upon conviction of any crime! Isn't the AG the top law enforcement office in any state?

[visagoth]

Interesting... I don't find her party affiliation noted anywhere in the article (which is btw

D

If this person was an 'R', I'm sure it would be readily appearent.

[TheMole]

Why, of course it would be, barbarian. In that case the story would read "Republican State Attorney-General Peg Lautenschlager (R-Fond du Lac) hypocritically continues to cash her paycheck in spite of contravening her own stated conservative Republican principles. The moderate Republican that we go to for comments on stories like this tells us he is deeply saddened by the conservative Republican deathgrip on the state party and wonders if decent people will ever be able to drag it back from the Neanderthal mire of the Religious Right ..."

[blackdog]

The IRS defines personal use of a company or state provided vehicle as income. And by the way, commuting to and from work is not considered a business expense, it's considered personal use.

This woman is disgusting.

[joesnuffy]

The top cop of Wisconsin

REFUSED to take the blood test....

She has been a real proponent of Wisconsin's tougher drunk driving and drug abuse laws....

Doyle of course now owns her....keeping her could be a life saver for him...

If she had one ounce of character ..she would resign

but on the other hand she's a very very liberal democrat
so an even an oz of character probably isn't very likely

wonder what old Peg had in her blood ..that she didn't want the cops or the public finding out about...

she also has the very poor judgement of mixing r 'muscle relaxants' with alcohol and then trying to drive home 75 miles or more..

Her poor judgement along with refusing to cooperate with law enforcement's investigation of her crime..should disqualify her from office

imo

[T'wit]

She made a "bad decision" to drive after "two" glasses of wine, right, sure, yeah, yeah. Telling bald lies like this one is a bad decision too -- especially if you are the state's top legal officer. I am really sick of liberals excusing sins, violations of the law and crimes as "bad decisions." The woman should be out of her job and off to jail.

[blackdog]

And you left out the second party, her chief of police husband for Fond Du Lac County. They both feed from the same trough, ignore the same laws, and when too cheap to live on their own dime for personal meals, travel, and lodging, they just eat more from the trough.

The irony is that if she weren't so cheap and were driving her own car, the cop at the scene would have made this go away. But because she was driving a taxpayer provided car, there was no way out.

She's not just an egotistical laws for thee and not for me scum, she's cheap, uncreative, and pathetic.

[joesnuffy]

Besides lying about 'how much' alcohol she consumed
if her home in Fondy is her office...and she only stays there for business reasons.....

Then where does she stay in Madison?

I'm betttin' Wi. current government is so corrupt...and so on the pad
these kinds of goings on are just routine

Peggy got caught...but I will bet she could sure sink a whole bunch of her compatriots (aka fellow RATS) if she had a mind to

I will also go out on a limb ....and say Peg probably doesnt see a thing wrong with what she did....

Being elite an all....

IMO

[blackdog]

I guess I'd be wrong if I supposed she hired a driver for minimum wage out of her own pocket, for the next six months huh?

I guess she now gets a state employee as her driver.....Some cop earning $60,000 per year with a pulled groin muscle workers comp case placing him on restricted duty.

Can I send the state $700, plead guilty to drunk driving retroactively after I citizens arrest myself, and then get a free personal driver?

Pretty good return on investment!

[blackdog]

You want her to resign? Here's how to do it..........

Every time you see a state tagged vehicle, call it in as an impared driver on your cell phone. If hundreds of these calls came in a day, the long knives inside Madison would come out at night.

I have a Tracfone registered to Tom Daschle just for such calls I want kept anonymous.

[ServesURight]

She certainly shoule be fired as AG upon conviction of any crime!

Unfortunately, she can't be fired. She is an elected official - hopefully Wisconsinites will remember this in 2006.

Even if she can be fired, Bingo Doyle wouldn't do nothing anyway.

[blackdog]

Now isn't there a process by which the legislature can impeach her? I mean judges, mayors, councilpersons, and dog catchers are elected regularly and if they commit a felony and are convicted of it, they cannot retain office?

I mean why not just go murder someone or shakedown a few dozen businesses if you are the attorney general, elected, and untouchable?

Are there not state government ethics rules in place in order to deal with such cases?

[spunkets]

"Some have questioned whether she had only two glasses of wine, "

Me too. 30 in a 65 and she was still all over the road. She finally took it at a crawl into a ditch.

[blackdog]

We had a neighbor in South Carolina who's son had an ad in the local paper for "personal driving services". He would get the use of several people's cars, he would drive them to and from work, and to appointments on a scheduled basis.

He got free use of their cars for six months at a pop and charged a hefty price. He was never wanting for cash or for wheels.