Board grants former inmate $25K for wrongful imprisonment (UPDATE)

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State officials have decided a former construction foreman’s wrongful imprisonment on rape charges entitles him to compensation for the three years he spent behind bars.

The state Claims Board on Tuesday released details of its Dec. 9 decision to award $25,016.76 to Maxwell Verkuilen, a 37-year-old Appleton resident, for 3 years, 1 month of wrongful imprisonment.

Verkuilen appeared before the board Dec. 9 and said he had worked at a now-dissolved construction company before being found guilty in 2003 of sexual assault. In February 2007, he persuaded an appellate court to overturn his conviction because his attorney had committed legal malpractice.

He requested the board grant him $450,000 for wrongful imprisonment.

Verkuilen, reached by phone Tuesday evening, said he never will be fully compensated for what he has had to endure.

Still, he said, “I appreciate the state Claims Board taking the time to review my case and giving me what they did.

“Also, I’m grateful that the truth was finally brought to light,” he added.

Verkuilen said he is trying to obtain further compensation from Outagamie County and has retained another lawyer to help him in that endeavor.

Michael Kuborn, who represented Verkuilen at the Claims Board hearing on Dec. 9, said it was not surprising his client was not awarded the full $450,000 he had asked for. Kuborn noted that Verkuilen did receive more than the $15,000 that he would have been awarded if he had received the statutory limit of $5,000 for each year of a wrongful imprisonment.

“We have nothing to complain about,” Kuborn said.

The Outagamie County District Attorney’s office recommended denying his claim, noting Verkuilen’s conviction was overturned due to ineffective assistance of counsel and he was not exonerated of the crime, according to the board’s decision. If tried again, the DA believes, Verkuilen would once again have been found guilty, according to the decision.

But Verkuilen never had an opportunity to exonerate himself in a criminal courtroom. Before a retrial could start, the Outagamie County judge who would have presided over the case granted a motion requiring the alleged victim open her mental health and medical records for inspection by the court. The woman refused, and the court dismissed the charges against Verkuilen.

Verkuilen argued that canceling the retrial deprived him of any opportunity to prove his innocence. He also said his lawyer at the original criminal trial, Joseph Norby of Appleton, failed to present much of the evidence that might have exculpated Verkuilen.

The board, noting that the circumstances of the case were unique in that a post-conviction civil jury found Verkuilen not guilty of the charge, opted to award him $15,416.76 for his time imprisoned and $9,600 for his legal fees. State law caps the compensation for wrongful convictions at $25,000.

Verkuilen said he was a construction manager at the now-dissolved Steve Skotzke Construction Inc., Greenville, when he was arrested in 2002.

According to a case summary prepared by Claims Board staff members, Verkuilen went out with friends on June 10, 2002, to an Appleton bar, where he met the alleged victim. Later that night, the pair went to his residence, a room he rented in the house of his sister and her husband, and had sexual intercourse.

Verkuilen was arrested the next day and charged with two counts of sexual assault. At the trial, prosecutors relied heavily on testimony provided by a nurse who said the alleged victim showed physical signs of being forced into having nonconsensual intercourse.

Verkuilen’s conviction was overturned in part because he proved his lawyer had not called witnesses who could have possibly rebutted the testimony. Verkuilen later sued the lawyer in civil court and the jury found Verkuilen was not guilty of sexual assault and that Norby had committed malpractice.

Norby could be immediately reached for comment.

The jurors awarded Verkuilen $700,000 but reduced the amount to $456,191.50 after finding that he had been negligent in not trying to force his lawyer to present a better defense. Norby, who did not have malpractice insurance, declared bankruptcy shortly after the ruling, and Verkuilen had not collected any money as of Dec. 9.

Verkuilen claimed he was owed compensation for his hardships, which did not end once he left prison. He said he briefly tried to return to the construction industry but decided he was not getting paid enough for the long hours he was putting in.

He is now a retirement planner in the Appleton area. He also, according to Wisconsin court records, has had a long series of encounters with the law, many of them related to traffic violations.

This year, he was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect on charges of recklessly endangering safety, operating a vehicle with a controlled substance and trying to flee from officers in Fond du Lac County.