[Madison, WI] – In case you missed it, Judge Janet Protasiewicz gave no prison time to a child rapist who solicited sex from a 15-year-old girl and got her pregnant – citing “strange times” provided by the COVID pandemic.
Over the past two weeks, Wisconsinites have learned the extent of No Jail Janet’s soft on crime record – including her decision to grant no prison to a felon who raped and abducted a teenage girl and a mother who starved her son to death. It’s clear that Janet Protasiewicz can’t be trusted to take our laws seriously or keep the public safe from violent criminals.
Read more from Dan O’Donnell below:
Supreme Court Candidate Cited COVID in Giving No Jail Time to Child Rapist
Dan O’Donnell
WISN 1130
December 19, 2022
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge, refused to sentence a child sex predator to jail time, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as the only reason. The following year, the defendant killed a woman in a drunk driving crash.
Kenneth D. Wright, 28, pleaded guilty in September 2020 to a charge of third degree sexual assault, a Class G felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. According to a criminal complaint, Wright, who was then 25, approached a 15-year-old girl as she was walking down the street and shortly after started a sexual relationship with her. She became pregnant and her mother reported to police that she had been sexually assaulted.
Wright was arrested, charged, and was convicted after a guilty plea. That December, however, Protasiewicz, refused to give him any jail time even though he expressed no remorse for his crime during his sentencing hearing, even going so far as to blame his victim.
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Protasiewicz chastised Wright for his refusal to take responsibility for his actions, but still declined to give him any jail time, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as the sole reason.
“But for COVID, I would be giving you some House of Correction time,” she told him. “These are strange times, Mr. Wright. I’m not going to do that.”
Instead, she stayed sentences of three years in prison and five years of extended supervision, meaning that Wright would not have to serve a single day behind bars if he completed five years of probation.
He did not. Just 10 months after Protasiewicz freed him, Wright was charged with killing a woman in a drunk driving crash. Milwaukee Police arrested him on October 16, 2021 after he rolled his vehicle over while driving 83 miles per hour in a 30 mile-per-hour stretch of W. Capitol Dr. His passenger, Jamera Doyle, was ejected from the car and pronounced dead at the scene.