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Former Kenosha district attorney faces license suspension

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//January 10, 2017//

Former Kenosha district attorney faces license suspension

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//January 10, 2017//

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Recently retired Kenosha County District Attorney Robert Zapf is facing with a 90-day license suspension over charges that he failed to disclose information in two homicide cases.

According to an Office of Lawyer Regulation complaint filed on Dec. 23, Zapf is faced with three counts of misconduct for his work in two related homicide cases. Zapf is alleged to have failed to tell defense counsel in both cases that a Kenosha Police Officer had planted an ID card and bullet while searching a defendant’s home, and that the officer had resigned because of that conduct, according to the OLR.

Also, the complaint alleges that Zapf lied in court after a jury trial from 2015, telling the judge that he was not aware of the officer’s misconduct and resignation and had no documentation of those events.

Zapf also failed to tell the court during the trial that the testimony about the ID and bullet was incomplete, according to the OLR.

Zapf’s attorney, Michael Younglove, said Monday that his client has cooperated fully with the OLR, providing them with extensive documentation that shows Zapf followed current law and rules.

“We are disappointed that the Office of Lawyer Regulation has chosen to file the complaint, which we are currently reviewing and preparing to answer,” Younglove said.

Zapf earned his law degree from Marquette University Law School in 1974. His license is active and in good standing, according to the State Bar website.

This is not Zapf’s first encounter with the OLR. The Wisconsin Supreme Court publicly reprimanded him in 1985 when he was a district attorney in Kenosha during the 1980s, for sending letters directly to a defendant instead of the attorney representing that defendant and for failing to disclose a statement made by a criminal defendant to the defendant’s attorney. He left the post and was appointed again in 2005 by then-Gov. Jim Doyle. Zapf retired last week after announcing in March that he would not run for re-election in the fall.

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