Dr. Dreyfuss musings

4 Democratic Party workers sentenced to jail for tire slashings

Tossing aside a plea agreement that called for probation, Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Michael Brennan sentenced four Democratic Party workers today to jail for slashing the tires of 25 vans rented by Republicans to take voters to polls for the 2004 presidential election.

(Sowande Omokunde (right) hugs his motherm U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, during a break in the sentencing proceedings Wednesday in front of another defendant, Lewis Caldwell)

Calling the vandalism more than harmless hijinks, Brennan admonished the four men, including the sons of two prominent Milwaukee politicians, for disenfranchising voters. The judge said he had received letters from Milwaukee County citizens upset over the crime.

"They see you tampering with something they consider sacred and that's the ballot box," Brennan said during a two-hour sentencing this morning.

Michael Pratt, 33, and Lewis Caldwell, 29, were each sentenced to six months in jail while Lavelle Mohammad, 36, got five months and Sowande Omokunde, 26, got four months. Each was also fined $1,000. They will be eligible for work release and were allowed to surrender to begin their sentences within two weeks.

Pratt is the son of former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt and Omokunde is the son of U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.)

A plea deal was reached in January as a jury appeared deadlocked in a case that received national attention. Four of the five defendants agreed to plead no contest to misdemeanor charges instead of the original felony property damage counts. A fifth Kerry-Edwards staffer accused of crippling Republican vans, Justin Howell, 21, turned down the last-minute deal and was acquitted by the jury.

At the time of the plea deal, Assistant District Attorney David Feiss said that if the defendants paid a collective $5,317.45 restitution by today – which they did - he would recommend all four get probation. Misdemeanor property damage carries a possible maximum penalty of nine months in jail and a $10,000 fine.

But in an unusual move, Brennan disregarded the agreement and said a stiffer punishment was needed.

“This case has to be an example of what happens if you interfere in voters’ rights,” said Brennan.

Outside the courtroom Marvin Pratt shook his head and mentioned the three fired Milwaukee police officers recently acquitted in the Frank Jude Jr. beating.

“Isn’t it funny - in the city of Milwaukee you can beat a man half to death and get exonerated and here you’ve got four men who committed a property crime” and are sentenced to jail, said Pratt said.

Brennan said Pratt and Caldwell got longer terms because they have prior criminal convictions – Pratt was convicted in 1996 in a hazing incident while he was a University of Wisconsin-Whitewater student and Caldwell was convicted of causing injury by drunken driving. Omokunde received the lightest punishment, Brennan said, because of his remorseful remarks to the judge during sentencing.

Omokunde told the judge that the 2004 presidential election sharply divided America but that no matter how divisive the election, no one had the right to commit vandalism.

“As a child I was taught honesty by my family and by my teachers. Your honor, I crossed the line,” Omokunde said, as his mother watched from the front row of the courtroom gallery.