Two Milwaukee police officers charged with being present at illegal strip searches and body cavity searches on Tuesday filed new motions to dismiss the charges, saying they are too vague to defend and violate due process.
Jeffrey Dollhopf and Brian Kozelek were in court Tuesday for a pretrial conference. Dollhopf is charged with illegal strip search and illegal cavity search, misdemeanors, both as party to a crime, and two counts of misconduct in public office, a felony. Kozelek faces one count of illegal strip search, and one of misconduct in office.
Motions filed Tuesday on behalf of both men argue that the counts should be dismissed because they are too vague to allow a proper defense and violate due process. Each is charged with counts related to a July 2011 stop in which a former fellow officer, Michael Vagnini, searched a suspect's buttocks, then later made him strip and try to defecate in a box at the District Five police station.
Dollhopf also is charged with being party to search of another suspect in September 2011, first during a stop, then a more aggressive probe of the suspect's anus back at the station, and finally getting the suspect to expel drugs from his rectum into a garbage can after he was stripped to his underwear. Vagnini also conducted those searches.
But the criminal complaint against Dollhopf and Kozelek doesn't allege they ordered anyone to strip, or touched or spoke to the suspects, according to their motion. In the second incident, the complaint does not specify where, how or when Dollhopf was involved, the motion contends.
Dollhopf and Kozelek also have filed a motion to exclude any expert testimony by prosecutors, citing their failure to identify any such experts or turn over their reports since defense counsel made the demand for such information in early July.
Vagnini pleaded no contest to four felonies and four misdemeanors and was sentenced to prison. A fourth officer, Jacob Knight, pleaded no contest to a single misdemeanor strip search count and is awaiting sentencing.
More than a dozen victims of the illegal searches have sued the City of Milwaukee and various police officials. Dollhopf, Kozelek and Knight have been suspended with pay.