Stevens Point Journal from Stevens Point, Wisconsin • Page 5

State 5A Sunday. October 10, 2004 Man wron imprisoned seeks $36 mi He says state didn't do enpugh to find attacker By Robert Imrie AP Wausau Bureau The Two Rivers man who spent 18 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit is seeking up to $36 million in damages from Manitowoc County and its former sheriff and district attorney, claiming they ignored obvious evidence of the real attacker. According to a copy of the lawsuit to be filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee, Steven Avery accuses the defendants of violating his civil and constitutional rights in wrongfully convicting him and imprisoning him. Former SheriffThomas Kocourek of Two Rivers and former District Attorney Denis Vogel of Madison ignored someone who should have been the prime suspect in the July 29, 1985, rape, according to the lawsuit The government officials had an "attitude of hostility" toward Avery and his family that tainted how the rape was investigated, the lawsuit says.

Kocourek, contacted Friday night, declined comment "Until I know and see what it is, I really can't comment" he said. Avery was imprisoned after a jury convicted him of sexually assaulting a female jogger on a Lake Michigan beach in 1985, largely on her eyewitness testimony. But DNA testing done last year showed Avery, now 42, could not have committed the crime and the analysis indicated another man serving a 60-year sentence for another sexual assault and kidnap ping Gregory A. Allen was the assailant Avery, the father of five small children when he was convicted, was freed from prison Sept 11, 2003. His lawsuit seeks between $1 million and $18 million in compensatory damages and between $1 million and $18 million for punitive damages.

Avery said Friday that he now lives with a new girlfriend in a trailer near Two Rivers, he works sporadically at his family's auto salvage business and he still has his good and bad days. In his 15-page lawsuit Avery con tends the Manitowoc Sheriff's Department didn't like him because of an "endangemient of safety" incident involving him and the wife of a deputy sheriff in January 1985. A friend of that woman, Deputy Sheriff Judy Dvorak, was involved in the investigation of the beach attack, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit says the victim's description of her attacker "substantially resembled" Allen, yet Kocourek and Dvorak identified Avery as the probable offender, which then wrongly focused the investigation on him. The sheriff excluded photos of Allen in pictures of possible suspects shown to the victim, but he did include pictures of Avery, the lawsuit said.

Allen had been under daily surveillance by the Manitowoc Police Department in July 1985 for possible sexual deviant behavior earlier in the year, the suit said. The victim of the beach attack was told that an arrest had been made in her crime and he would be in a police lineup, the lawsuit says. Avery was the only person in the lineup whose picture had been shown to the victim and she identified him as the assailant Central Wisconsin Sunday llion Candidates' wife comes to Wisconsin Norwalk police chief faces charges from gun incident 7. 4 'I. i '4 i what he was doing.

The criminal complaint said Hoskins fired at least two shots in the air to show the gun was real, and another shot was fired into the ground as the two men fought over the gun. Ellingson claims Hoskins took the gun, pointed it at Ellingson's chest and pulled the trigger, but the gun only clicked rather than firing. Law enforcement officers seized the weapon, which Hoskins said he had borrowed from his girlfriend, with whom he was staying when he noticed the vehicles parked on the road and' went to check what was going on. Hoskins is scheduled to appear Monday in Jackson County Circuit Court. Confrontation occurred following homecoming prank The Associated Press BLACK RIVER FALLS A police chief from Monroe County faces charges including attempted first-degree intentional homicide in a confrontation a year ago that involved a homecoming prank.

Matthew Hoskins, 34, of Sparta, who serves as police chief in Norwalk, also was charged Friday with two counts of second-degree reckless endangerment regarding the incident on Sept. 27, 2003, in the Jackson County town of Albion. The (riminal complaint said the incident developed after John Ellingson set up trip wires attached to noisemaking devices designed to scare the youths he expected would try to toilet-paper his home, a common practice of teens during homecoming. Around midnight, he heard teens and saw several walking toward his house, so he jumped out and made a noise like a bear's growl, and his son set off a noise-maker. The youths ran screaming and hollering back to their vehicles.

Ellingson told authorities he was walking back toward his house with his daughter when he noticed a man in the road pointing a gun at him, and a struggle developed after he asked the man, later identified as Hoskins, Si A ai in i.f The Associated Press Elizabeth Edwards, right, wife of vice presidential candidate John Edwards, thanks Amanda Christianson for her support Saturday while greeting people at the DARE Chili Cook-off in La Crosse. Researchers study radar security for Great Lakes We're Sound, We re Safe, And WeVe Been Locally Owned Since 1913! NEKOOSA PORT EDWARDS STATE BANK 405 MARKET ST. NEKOOSA (715) 886-3105 240 Market Ave. 1153 Rome Center Dr. Port Edwards I I Town of Rome (715) 887-3285 rnHi (715)325-5676 Member Heibel has the government contacts to determine which national security agencies could use the boat traffic data generated by the project Breon's group and state Sen.

Jane Earll, R-Erie, who got the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development Grant for the initial study, are interested in the project because it could bring jobs to the area, should a security center or technology cluster result from it Behrend. About 1,300 miles of the U.S.-Canadian border consist of the Great Lakes. Breon's business development group is partnering with researchers at Behrend and Mercy-hurst College and have already gotten a $50,000 seed grant for the project's first phase testing whether the radar will work. "This radar was never intended for this kind of a mission and we have to see how it performs if it will be able to tell the difference between a boat and a flock of gulls, Gray said. "It sounds easy, but it's not" The other partner in the venture is Robert Heibel, the FBI's deputy chief of counterterrorism during the Reagan administration, who now directs Mercyhurst's Institute for Intelligence Studies.

The Associated Press ERIE, Pa. Erie-area researchers are studying whether low-cost commercial radar might be used to track vessels on the Great Lakes for homeland security purposes. "In the wake of 9-11, the United States and Canada have taken significant measures to further secure our borders. However, the Great Lakes borders remain a significant -weak spot," said Susan Breon, president of the Center for eBusiness Advanced Information Technology "Ask the border patrol and Homeland Security how many boats go back and forth between Canada and the U.S., and they don't have any way to know," said Robert Gray, director of the Center for Navigation, Communication, and Information Systems at Penn State- In Brief Miller roof fix may cost MILWAUKEE Engineering experts are recommending a $9.44 million plan to fix the system used to open and close the roof at Miller Park up more than $1.2 million from an estimate last "Journal Sentinel reported Saturday that engineers noW are suggesting the existing two-wheel bogie system used to open and close the roof be scrapped in favor of a new, four-wheel bogie system. But Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of America, which built the roof immediately disputed the finding by Hardesty Hanover, a New York engineering consulting firm hired by the district to review the existing system.

Teachers angry at BTC president BELOIT The faculty union at Blackhawk Technical College wants an apology from the college president for his appearance with President Bush at a rally last month. Union members claim BTC President Eric Larson violated school policy by representing the school at a campaign event when the rally was held at the Janesville Conference Center Sept. 24. The policy, according to union member Bob Housner, prohibits those employed by the college from attending a political event as a representative of the school. The Associated Press ft A 2800 Hoover Avenue, Stevens Point, YVI 54481 PRE HOLIDAY CHAFT SALE OCT.

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