By Mike Johnson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Waukesha, Wis. — The city’s fire chief is renewing efforts to terminate a firefighter he accuses of trying to arrange a gang hit on the husband of a former lover.
Two weeks after his initial accusations were thrown out, Chief Allen LaConte has filed amended charges seeking the dismissal of Charles Stelter, who the chief says admitted to a relative that he organized a hit on a Waukesha County jailer and paid $3,000 for it.
The Waukesha County district attorney has said the allegation of a plot has been discredited and he would not pursue criminal charges against Stelter, who has been with the Fire Department eight years.
But city officials said they still are seeking Stelter’s firing, alleging conduct and rules violations.
According to LaConte’s new statement of charges and other documentation, Stelter wanted the jailer “out of the picture” or hurt in the hope that the jailer’s wife, who broke off the affair, would return to Stelter.
The chief in late January initiated proceedings to fire Stelter, but the city’s Police and Fire Commission rejected LaConte’s statement of charges, saying the seven-page document was “insufficiently prepared.”
The panel, noting that the accusations failed to indicate how LaConte learned of the matter, gave the chief until Friday to refile.
Stelter’s attorneys, Rebecca Boyle and John Fuchs, contend that the department’s investigation and questioning of Stelter have no relationship to his work activities, according to transcripts included with the amended charges. The attorneys say the questioning violates Stelter’s constitutional rights.
“To anyone astute, the charges are suspect on their face and based on allegations from a person who obviously is devoid of any credibility,” Fuchs said Friday.
LaConte’s amended statement of charges spell out in detail how and from whom the Waukesha Fire Department learned of a suspected murder-for-hire scheme that purportedly involved members of the Latin Kings street gang.
In early November, the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department and a representative of the FBI informed the Fire Department that Stelter was being questioned in a criminal investigation, the complaint says.
“Due to the severity of the allegations,” the Fire Department launched its own investigation, LaConte says in his complaint.
LaConte says Stelter should be fired because of “unlawful conduct” and violation of department rules that prohibit firefighters from engaging in “immoral or indecent conduct” and from engaging in “fighting, threats and intimidation.”
The chief’s statement says the woman involved in the “illicit affair” was a former student in Stelter’s emergency medical technician class at Waukesha County Technical College.
LaConte also accuses Stelter of insubordination for refusing to answer questions, a violation of department rules.
On Dec. 13, Stelter, on the advice of his attorneys, refused to answer any questions related to the department’s inquiry. On Dec. 21, Stelter refused to answer the question of whether he paid someone to kill the jailer.
Because of the failure to answer, the chief can “only infer” that the answer to the question would have been “yes,” the chief’s complaint contends.
Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel said the murder-for-hire allegation was concocted by an informant — identified by others as Stelter’s brother-in-law — who went to police with the story.