Making crime victims double victims should not be tolerated
By Natalie J. Ostgaard
Crookston Daily Times
Posted Sep 17, 2010 @ 01:17 PM
Crookston — According to 100 people surveyed for Family Feud, lawyers rank right up there with politicians as the top unethical and corrupt professions. While the scientific value of Family Feud polls is certainly questionable, more often than not, they tend to reflect the public’s thoughts. That said, this does not mean that all or even most lawyers are unethical and corrupt, just that people perceive them to be, more so than other professions.
Calumet County, Wis. District Attorney Kenneth Kratz isn’t helping to disprove this perception, instead proving himself to be one of the supreme dirtbags among his peers. In a blatant conflict of interest, this guy preyed on a crime victim half his age, whose ex-boyfriend he happened to be prosecuting for nearly choking her to death, by “sexting” her 30 provocative and suggestive text messages that started right after he first interviewed her regarding the case. An Associated Press story details a few of the messages, which, from the standpoint here, leave nothing to the imagination. It is quite obvious that Kratz is explicitly attempting to initiate an affair (he was married at the time) with the woman.
This was sexual harassment and intimidation at its finest. The woman did nothing to bring on the unwanted attention and when she let him know she was not interested, the prosecutor tried to cut down her self-esteem. She said felt pressured to have a relationship with him or he'd drop the charges against her abuser, as one message alluded to.
Now a double victim, she did the right thing by promptly filing a complaint with the police. Kratz then removed himself from the case, citing an undisclosed conflict of interest, so the state took it on and won a conviction.
You'd think this would have allowed the victim to sleep better at night, yet she still feels victimized. That's because Kratz has not had to face the music for what he's done, nearly a year later. The police referred the woman's complaint to the state Division of Criminal Investigation, which she said declined to charge him because they didn't think, criminally, he did anything wrong.
Kratz claimed his resignation from the Wisconsin Crime Victims' Rights Board, an agency he (ironically) helped create that can reprimand judges, prosecutors and police officers who mistreat crime victims, is a self-imposed sanction. He also claimed the Office of Lawyer Regulation found no violation of rules governing attorney misconduct, although there's no proof of this.
The allegations against Kratz only became public when the AP got wind of them and confronted him with the messages. He said he "was embarrassed at this lapse of judgment." He refuses to step down from his post.
This was much more than a lapse of judgment. While the conduct may, according to Wisconsin law, be barely legal, no one can deny that it was pure stupidity, pompousness and recklessness on Kratz's part. Does Calumet County really want this borderline criminal prosecuting its criminal cases? What's going to happen next time he pulls a similar stunt?
Kratz is not up for re-election until 2012. His behavior needs to be investigated further before then and perhaps more sanctions brought upon him, possibly ousting him from office. The guy sounds a little too unstable.
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