Milwaukee Ald. Jim Bohl is under investigation for allegedly causing a landlord to get hit with a slew of code violations after he refused to evict two sex offenders from a property in the alderman’s district.
Investigators from the district attorney’s office believe Bohl then had the landlord’s records falsely wiped clean after the landlord said he had broken a state housing contract for the offenders. The landlord, in fact, did not break that contract.
The investigation is revealed in a search warrant that seeks phone and email records of Bohl; his aide Todd Peterson; Department of Neighborhood Services inspector Todd Vandre; and an audit trail of DNS records related to nine of the landlord’s properties.
The warrant indicates investigators were seeking evidence of misconduct in public office, and threats to injure or accuse of a crime. Both are felonies.
According to the search warrant affidavit, Bohl told the landlord’s property manager in October that the two tenants “needed to go” from a house in the 3200 block of N. 77th St.
The men were both on supervised release under the state’s Chapter 980 law that allows civil commitment beyond prison sentences for certain sex offenders. They were placed in the house through an August contract established by the state Department of Health Services, which oversees Chapter 980 subjects.
Within a few a days of the conversation with Bohl, property owner Jeff Stockinger told his manager that he had recently been hit with orders to correct a variety of violations issued by the city’s Department of Neighborhood Services at his properties. All were from the same inspector, Vandre, and dated Oct. 15 through Oct. 18.
“I was shocked, stunned and scared,” said Jim Miller, who worked as Stockinger’s property manager. “Jeff was livid. He thought it would put him out of business.”
Miller said that before the violations were issued, Bohl offered to take money out of his campaign fund to make Stockinger whole for three months’ of rental — an allegation Bohl denied through his attorney. Miller said the monthly rent at the home where the two tenants were living was $1,250 a month, or $3,750 for the three months.
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