Handled In-House: Bechman, Ortiz and the Records Door

ACTIVE INVESTIGATION — ONE DEPUTY CONVICTED, ONE NEVER REFERRED · RECORDS REQUESTED · PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 10, 2026

Two Racine County Sheriff’s Office investigators. Two findings, within nine weeks of each other, that each had used police records for a personal purpose. One was referred out and convicted. The other was never referred at all. The difference was not the conduct. It was who held the file.

Why this investigation exists

H.O.T. Government’s Kite File documents how a captain’s 2023 warning about Deputy Preston Kite was handled informally, with no report, no investigation and no record. The Union Grove superintendent case in October 2026 showed the same shape: a complaint reached the Sheriff’s Office and the subject was reached before the evidence was. This investigation asks a narrower question with a paper answer: when the Racine County Sheriff’s Office finds that one of its own investigators has misused police records, what does it do?

In the winter of 2025–26 that question was answered twice, on the record, with two different investigators. The documents are public court files. H.O.T. Government has read all of them.

Case one: Investigator Jonathan Bechman — referred out, charged, convicted

Jonathan Bechman, 48, was a Racine County Sheriff’s Office investigator from 2011. In January 2026 his wife petitioned the Kenosha County Circuit Court for a domestic abuse restraining order (Kenosha County Case No. 2026CV000075). A temporary order issued January 23. H.O.T. Government does not name the petitioner and does not repeat the contents of her petition; the injunction was entered on the parties’ agreement on February 2, 2026, and the allegations in it were never adjudicated.

What matters here is what the Sheriff’s Office did with its own discovery. According to the sworn criminal complaint (Racine County Case No. 2026CF000590, later 2026CM000769), on January 8, 2026, at the Racine County Law Enforcement Center, Lt. Michael Luell reported documents on Bechman’s desk that appeared to show he had been using police resources to locate where the petitioner was living out of state — a handwritten note with a possible out-of-state address and a new phone number, from sources the complaint describes as “not open source,” unconnected to any investigation or work duty, and against policy. Bechman was placed on administrative leave January 9. Mount Pleasant Police conducted the criminal investigation.

On February 2, 2026 — the same day the injunction was entered — District Attorney Patricia Hanson signed a Request for Appointment of Special Prosecutor, checking box 9: a conflict of interest exists regarding the district attorney or her staff. The court appointed Milwaukee County District Attorney Jeffrey J. Altenburg “or his designee” the same day. Milwaukee ADA Erin Karshen prepared the complaint, sworn May 14, 2026 by Mount Pleasant Det. Daniel Schauer and filed May 15: Count 1, attempted misconduct in public office (Wis. Stat. § 946.12(2)/939.32) for the January 8 conduct; Counts 2 and 3, misdemeanor battery with domestic-abuse modifiers. The complaint states that at the time of the Count 1 conduct he was “still employed as a police detective.” Racine County Human Resources told the Badger Project his last day was May 1, 2026.

On August 21, 2026, Bechman pleaded guilty to all three misdemeanor counts before Judge David Paulson. Sentence: six months in jail with work release (served in Walworth County beginning September 18), three years’ probation, no contact with the victim, batterer’s intervention, domestic-violence counseling, a mental-health evaluation, and no firearms. Under state law a misdemeanor domestic-violence conviction ends a law-enforcement certification.

What the record establishes: when a lieutenant found evidence that an investigator had used police records for a personal purpose, the matter left the building — to an outside police department, to a special prosecutor, to a court — and the misconduct charge was filed and resolved by conviction. That is the system working as it is supposed to. Keep it in view for case two.

Case two: Investigator Emil Ortiz — handled in-house, never referred

Nine weeks before the Bechman desk report, the same Professional Standards Unit had finished an internal investigation of another investigator. Emil J. Ortiz, 37, was a Racine County Sheriff’s Office investigator who, according to the Sheriff’s Office’s own internal findings as filed in Racine County Circuit Court, ran 19 searches of the FLOCK license-plate-reader system between August 10 and October 9, 2025, each logged as “Investigation” or “Invest.,” targeting the vehicle of a private individual connected to his personal life, with no open investigation. The internal file also found queries through the Wisconsin DOJ TIME system (which reaches NCIC, DOT, DOC, CIB and criminal-history records) and the commercial CLEAR platform for the same purpose. H.O.T. Government does not name the private individuals involved and does not repeat the contents of the underlying police reports.

The internal investigation was conducted by Lt. Michael J. Luell, Professional Standards Unit, in a memorandum to Capt. Kelly Goetzke dated November 7, 2025. It sustained violations of the Conflict of Interest rule and of Policy 319 (Ethics; Unauthorized Access, Disclosure or Use; Relationships) and Policy 703. The memorandum cites no criminal statute and makes no criminal referral. Ortiz was demoted from investigator to deputy, suspended ten days without pay, and reassigned to patrol. He acknowledged the misconduct and waived a disciplinary hearing. He remained employed.

Ten days without pay is the discipline Capt. Cary Madrigal received in the Kite matter (RASO Internal File 25DC20). H.O.T. notes the coincidence; it draws no conclusion from it.

A citizen forced the question. The DA answered it in writing.

Because no referral was made, no prosecutor ever looked at the Ortiz file — until a private citizen, Kenosha County Eye publisher Kevin Mathewson, filed a John Doe petition under Wis. Stat. § 968.26 on March 17, 2026 (Racine County Case No. 2026JD000001, assigned to Walworth County Judge Kristine E. Drettwan). On April 13 the judge ordered DA Hanson to charge or explain within 90 days.

Hanson’s letter to the court is dated June 1, 2026. In her own words:

“criminal charges from this internal investigation have not been referred to my office by any agency as of today’s date”

“The only records I have reviewed in this case are the records provided by the Petitioner”

“I do not have access to more, nor do I have other materials to share with the Court.”

— District Attorney Patricia J. Hanson, letter to Judge Drettwan, June 1, 2026, Racine County Case No. 2026JD000001

She declined to charge, writing that the first three elements of the offense “could potentially by met given the facts I have at hand” but that she could not prove Ortiz knew his conduct exceeded his authority, because he had been open with his supervisor and with the outside police department he gave the information to. The letter refers to him as “Investigator E.J. Ortiz” — a rank he had lost in November 2025 as a result of this conduct — and twice misdescribes the person whose vehicle was searched; both errors are visible on the face of the file.

The judge did not accept the letter as the end of the matter. On July 14, 2026, reciting that the DA “had no materials to provide the Court,” Judge Drettwan ordered the Racine County Sheriff’s Office and the Village of Summit Police Department to produce full, unredacted investigative files, including body-camera video, within 20 days for her private review. Both complied.

On October 8, 2026, having read everything, the judge issued a final order. She found “sufficient evidence that the officer’s use of law enforcement technology/resources did exceed his authority” and that the use was “not sanctioned by his department for use in an official investigation for his department.” She nonetheless closed the proceeding, finding insufficient evidence that he knew the conduct was prohibited — the knowledge element the felony requires — in part because he gave the information to another agency rather than acting on it himself. No charge was ever filed. Ortiz has not been charged with any crime and is presumed innocent of any.

What the record establishes: the Sheriff’s Office found the misuse, documented it, disciplined it and kept it. No prosecutor saw it until a citizen paid a filing fee. The DA then reviewed only what the citizen gave her. A judge later found the conduct exceeded his authority. The only reason any of this is public is that the John Doe file was left open and unsealed.

Two investigators, one unit, two doors

A fairness note on the routing. Mount Pleasant Police were already investigating Bechman’s battery allegations when the desk documents were found, so the Bechman matter had an outside agency attached to it from the start. That is a non-sinister explanation for why one case left the building and the other did not. It is also the point: the Sheriff’s Office’s Professional Standards Unit did not, on its own, treat either investigator’s misuse of records as a crime. One became a crime because someone else was already in the room.

Racine County against the rest of the state

Ortiz is not an isolated declination. In July 2026 DA Hanson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel her office had reviewed possible charges against two Racine police officers and two Sheriff’s deputies for FLOCK misuse — two closed with no charges (Ortiz was one), two ongoing. TMJ4 reported the same month that at least five Racine County officers had been investigated for FLOCK misuse and none charged. H.O.T. uses the count, not a prediction: two reviews were open at last report.

In the same twelve months, every neighboring jurisdiction that found the same conduct charged it:

• Outagamie County — Menasha officer Cristian Morales, felony misconduct in public office for personal FLOCK searches logged as “investigation” (2026CF000029); pleaded no contest, sentenced August 17, 2026 to six months’ jail and three years’ probation.
• Milwaukee County — Officer Josue Ayala, attempted misconduct in public office for 55 and 124 personal FLOCK searches (2026CM000553); pleaded guilty, 12 months’ probation, resigned. The same office, on the same charge, prosecuted Bechman as Racine’s special prosecutor.
• Kenosha County — former deputy Frank D. McGrath, two felony counts (2026CF001160, filed August 19, 2026) for GPS tracking and 16–17 FLOCK searches of a coworker. Kenosha DA Xavier Solis had first declined in June after a John Doe order, then charged once the criminal investigation concluded. The criminal investigation of McGrath was conducted, at Kenosha’s request, by the Racine County Sheriff’s Office, whose investigators referred their findings to the Kenosha DA (CBS 58, Aug. 19, 2026; to be confirmed against the complaint).

Read that last item again. During the months Racine County was treating its own investigator’s FLOCK, TIME and CLEAR misuse as a policy violation, Racine County Sheriff’s detectives were building the felony FLOCK case against another county’s deputy and referring it for charges. The Sheriff’s Office knows how to do this. It did it for Kenosha.

The Luell question, again

Lt. Michael Luell wrote the Ortiz memo that made no referral. Lt. Michael Luell reported the Bechman desk documents that became a charge. Lt. Michael Luell is the Sheriff’s Office spokesman who, on November 7, 2026, announced Capt. Madrigal’s administrative leave “pending internal administrative review.” By the Sheriff’s Office’s own description he holds internal affairs, public information, records and legal-risk functions in one office. H.O.T. Government has asked, in the Kite File, who inside that structure reviews the reviewer. These two files make the question concrete: the same unit decided, nine weeks apart, that one record-misuse case was a policy matter and the other was evidence of a crime.

What is not in either file: Capt. Cary Madrigal’s name appears in no investigative, disciplinary or charging document in the Bechman or Ortiz matters. It appears once, in a petitioner’s argument about the DA’s campaign support, which the judge rejected. H.O.T. does not place her in either case. Nor does the record establish that Kite, Bechman and Ortiz “worked together” beyond serving in the same agency in overlapping years.

What this has to do with Kite, Madrigal and Union Grove

Four matters, one agency, one pattern in the documents: a complaint or a finding arrives inside the Racine County Sheriff’s Office, and the first decision made is whether it leaves the building.

• Kite, 2023: deputies’ warnings handled by a captain, informally. No report. Kenosha County made the arrest in 2024.
• Ortiz, 2025: database misuse sustained internally. No referral. A judge later found the conduct exceeded his authority.
• Bechman, 2026: an outside department already present. Referred, conflicted out, convicted.
• Union Grove, October 2026: a letter about a superintendent reached the Sheriff’s Office; he was contacted the same day; Kenosha County made the arrest. (The superintendent is charged, not convicted, and is presumed innocent.)

Three of four stayed in-house at the first decision. The one that did not is the one that ended in a conviction. That is the record. Whether it reflects policy, habit or something else is a question for the outside investigation H.O.T. Government has already called for — and for the incoming Sheriff.

Records requested

• Racine County Clerk of Circuit Court — certified copies of 2026JD000001 Doc. 10 (DA letter, June 1), the July 14 order, and the October 8 final order.
• Racine County Sheriff’s Office / Corporation Counsel — the Professional Standards Unit’s referral policy; every record-misuse internal investigation 2023–2026 and whether a criminal referral was made in each; the McGrath investigative file and referral; any Brady/Giglio notification concerning either investigator.
• Racine County District Attorney — the FLOCK-misuse review and declination records released to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in July 2026 (released to a reporter, they are releasable to the public).
• Racine County Human Resources / Finance — Bechman’s separation record and leave pay January 9–May 1, 2026; duty-weapon and credential return.
• Kenosha County Clerk of Circuit Court — certified copies of 2026CV000075 Docs. 9, 13 and 14, and the transcript of the February 2, 2026 hearing. The serving deputy’s intake sheet records multiple firearms; the sworn statement filed nine days later lists one. H.O.T. is obtaining certified paper before publishing a number.

Standards for this page

Every factual statement above is drawn from the Racine County and Kenosha County court files, the Sheriff’s Office’s own internal findings as filed in court, or named news reporting, and is attributed where it comes from reporting. The petitioner in the Kenosha matter, the private individuals in the Ortiz matter, and the contents of the underlying police reports are not published and will not be. Kenosha County Eye reporting of additional internal matters concerning Ortiz is not independently verified and is not repeated here. Bechman stands convicted on his own plea. Ortiz has never been charged and is presumed innocent of any crime; the only judicial finding about him is the one quoted above. Lt. Luell, Capt. Goetzke and DA Hanson are invited to respond; any response will be published in full. Corrections: hotgovernment@gmail.com.