POLITICS

Ex-prison chief for Wisconsin eviscerates Scott Walker and Brad Schimel in a new book

Patrick Marley

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - Gov. Scott Walker declined to meet with his corrections secretary as a crisis unfolded at the state’s teen prison and his staff deliberately kept him from visiting the facility, according to a new book by Walker’s former prisons chief.

The book by former Corrections Secretary Ed Wall — released Friday, four days before Wisconsin’s primary — is highly critical of the Republican governor and GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel’s handling of problems at Lincoln Hills School for Boys, a juvenile prison north of Wausau that has been under criminal investigation for more than three years.

Schimel fired Wall from a Department of Justice job in 2016 after he told a Walker aide he should feel free to destroy a document. Wall writes in the book that that incident was misconstrued and he was nearly driven to suicide because of how he was treated by Walker, Schimel and their staffs.

Walker appointed Wall to lead the Department of Corrections, but the two are now deeply at odds. Wall recently cut a video criticizing Walker for state schools Superintendent Tony Evers, one of eight Democrats challenging Walker.

Walker aides said they would not respond to everything in Wall's book but that Wall had shown himself to be untrustworthy.

"These are false attacks being made by someone who was fired from the Department of Justice for asking a state employee to break the law," said a statement from Walker spokeswoman Amy Hasenberg.

The book — “Unethical: Life in Scott Walker’s Cabinet and the Dirty Side of Politics" — is mostly about Wall's time at the departments of Corrections and Justice but also touches on politics. Wall contends Walker feared Donald Trump would "destroy the Republican Party" but later tried to "prostitute himself" to get Trump's backing.

Wall writes that he was the only cabinet secretary who was not allowed to meet with Walker in the fall of 2015 over his budget. At the time, the problems at Lincoln Hills were coming to a head and Walker was nearing the end of his short-lived bid for the Republican nomination for president.

“When I asked (Walker aide Rich) Zipperer why he was canceling my budget meeting with the governor, he replied, ‘We can’t have you or the DOC anywhere near him right now,’ ” Wall writes. “I understood the ‘right now’ to be related to his struggling presidential bid and the Lincoln Hills issues.”

From 2012 to 2014, Lincoln Hills, Wisconsin's main prison for young offenders, tried to implement training programs for a practice known as trauma informed care.

The state has racked up more than $20 million in settlement and legal costs over Lincoln Hills and two former guards have been warned by prosecutors they could be charged in the ongoing criminal probe into prisoner abuse.

Walker and lawmakers this year agreed to close the facility by 2021 and replace it with regional juvenile lockups.

Wall's description of Walker and his staff’s demeanor was released just days after Walker told reporters that there would be “no value” in him visiting one of the prisons he oversees as governor. Walker has not been to a correctional institution since he was elected in 2010.

Wall writes that he tried to get Walker to Lincoln Hills while the problems there were becoming apparent.

“While Lincoln Hills was dragging along, I asked several times that he consider making an appearance at the institution to demonstrate his commitment to fixing the problems, but again I was told there was no way he would go near the place,” Wall writes.

“All I kept hearing was (Walker spokeswoman) Jocelyn Webster saying, ‘Nothing good comes out of Corrections,’ and I was never sure if that was her position or the governor’s, but Walker certainly seemed to be living by it.”

Wall also recounts an exchange with Walker at a holiday party for cabinet secretaries in 2015 during which Walker acknowledged Schimel's Department of Justice didn’t investigate allegations of inmate abuse aggressively enough.

“We talked very openly about how the DOJ had dragged its feet on the investigation at Lincoln Hills, and he agreed,” Wall writes.

But around the same time, Wall also wondered if Walker and Schimel were conspiring to downplay the unsafe conditions at Lincoln Hills, Wall writes.

“Could the governor and the attorney general be working together to sweep Lincoln Hills under the rug and put the blame on me and the agency?” Wall writes. “That would explain the DOJ’s foot-dragging and the apparent lack of interest on the part of the governor’s chief of staff, Rich Zipperer.”

In a statement, Schimel stood by his handling of the Lincoln Hills investigation and stressed that Wall was fired for "dishonesty." He blamed Wall for the trouble at Lincoln Hills.

"As I have said before, the person in the best position and with direct responsibility to ensure the ongoing safety at Lincoln Hills was Ed Wall," Schimel said in his statement.

Schimel started the investigation and handed it off to the FBI in 2016.

Around then, Wall stepped down from the Department of Corrections and returned to a job he had previously held at the Department of Justice. He was put on paid leave from that job to avoid a conflict of interest because the Department of Justice was investigating Lincoln Hills.

In an effort to return to active duty, Wall sent Zipperer a letter and a copy of workplace complaint he was considering filing. In the letter, Wall wrote "feel free to shred it once you've looked it over. Nobody will know that I sent it and this is strictly between you and me."

Schimel then fired Wall, saying he had advocated for destroying public records. The situation drove Wall to put a gun to his head, he writes in the book.

“This was it; this was the end," he writes. "I would make them pay. It was time to end the pain. Maybe next time, they would stop and think about ruining people’s lives. I couldn’t take it anymore. They won.”

Wall then thought about his family and decided against killing himself, he writes.

"Reason overcame pain and anger as I let my hand with the gun drop to my lap, cognizant of the pain on the roof of my mouth and the taste of blood," he writes. "I stared at the gun and became angry with myself for even considering what I had just come so close to doing.”

Elsewhere, Wall relates a discussion he says he had with Walker shortly after he dropped out of the presidential race.

"He looked exhausted and commented on how destructive the discourse had become with Trump in the fray, and he worried about the election," Wall writes. "He made it clear what he thought about Trump and feared that he would destroy the Republican Party.

"I respected his apparent position of principle, but that was washed away when, as the months went by, I watched him prostitute himself to the same bully that had wasted no time in ripping his dignity away in front of the nation. Trump had humiliated Walker, making him look so small and insignificant, yet Walker rolled over like a dog wanting his belly scratched and became what I feared he might be — shameless and unprincipled."

Journal Sentinel reporters Molly Beck and Max Bayer in Madison contributed to this report.