Crime and Court Roundup: Another former Walker aide makes her first court appearance

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A former top aide to Governor Scott Walker when he was the Milwaukee County Executive made her first court appearance yesterday on four felony misconduct charges. Kelly Rindfleisch is accused of working on Brett Davis's failed campaign for lieutenant governor in 2010 during the hours she was supposed to be working as Walker's former deputy-of-chief of staff. She's free on a signature bond, and is due back in court March 8th when a judge will decide if there's enough evidence to order a trial. Rindfleisch's attorney, Franklyn Gimbel, said the charges should be dropped because they were based on testimony she gave a number of years ago while under immunity in the State Capitol's illegal campaigning scandal. Prosecutors said the 43-year-old Rindfleisch knew she was breaking the law because of her past experience as a Capitol aide during the caucus scandal a decade ago. But Gimbel says such an assertion violates her right against self-incrimination. And he said Rindfleisch should have been charged in Columbia County where she now lives, instead of in Milwaukee where the alleged offenses took place. A 2007 law gives public officials the choice of where they want their government ethics allegations to be tried.

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One person is under arrest for a fire that caused heavy damage to a Catholic school at Oconto Falls in northeast Wisconsin. The blaze damaged several classrooms on Tuesday night at Saint Anthony School. Attorney General J-B Van Hollen announced the arrest late yesterday. His Justice Department is helping local authorities investigate. Van Hollen said the initial evidence showed that the blaze was not an accident. Charges have not been filed yet. The school is attached to Saint Anthony Parish, but the church itself was not damaged. Meanwhile, classes have been moved indefinitely to Grace Lutheran Church in Oconto Falls.

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A diabetic patient is suing Madison's Dean Health System, saying he got Hepatitis-"C" from a nurse educator who was showing to how give himself insulin. 55-year-old Keith Steffen is believed to be the first patient to go to court, after Dean Health officials said last year that the nurse might have exposed 23-hundred patients to hepatitis or H-I-V. The lawsuit said Stacey Anderson used a demonstration pen and a finger stick device on Steffen -- but the needles were not changed after it was used on each patient. And the lawsuit said Steffen got Hepatitis-"C" as a direct result of that. The state Board of Nursing is scheduled to consider disciplining Anderson today. She and Dean Health have not commented on the new lawsuit. His lawyer said Steffen is paying 80-thousand-dollars a year for his hepatitis drugs -- and he's not tolerating them well. Attorney Dan Rottier (ro-teer') said Steffen was forced to file the lawsuit to get his medical bills paid. Dean Health has tested over 15-hundred patients since announcing the incident. Another 700 did not have direct contact with the devices, and were found not to need testing.

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A 26-year-old man is in custody, as police investigate an apparent sexual assault at Gateway Technical College in Racine. A 36-year-old woman told officers that the man followed her into a restroom on campus, molested her, and then left on a bicycle. Police found a man yesterday who matched the woman's description of both the suspect and the bike. At last word, he was considered as a "person of interest."

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