Do you think Jessica now calls him "Loophole Paulie"?

by folkbum

A judge today refused to dismiss five counts of misdemeanor sex assault filed against an acupuncturist who practiced in the City of Pewaukee and Delafield and scheduled the case for a July jury trial.

Samy A. Elawady, 63, of Wauwatosa, was charged in March with nine counts of fourth-degree sexual assault in connection with inappropriately touching the breasts of six female patients, according to the criminal complaint filed against him in Waukesha County Circuit Court.

Defense attorney Paul Bucher argued that five of the counts should be dismissed because the state failed to allege in the charging document that the touching was for the purpose of sexual gratification. [. . .] The former Waukesha County district attorney said two elements are required before sexual assault charges can be filed: touching and sexual gratification.

Hat tip to my wife, who read to me from this story just appalled that anyone would offer up such a defense for a serial groper. No surprise it comes from a serial GOPer.

This is going to blow some minds

by folkbum
UPDATED within!

It'll blow righty minds, that is:

District attorneys around Wisconsin rarely claim sick leave, allowing them to boost their retirement benefits like lawmakers, judges and other state elected officials.

Last year, just one of the 62 district attorneys who get state benefits claimed sick leave, according to records for all but the last three weeks of the year.

Like other state employees, district attorneys may buy health insurance in retirement with unused sick leave. For former Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher, in office for 18 years, the benefit is worth over $158,300, more than for any of his peers.

Bucher, of course, is a hero to many of the Charlie Sykes Stormtroopers down here in the Milwaukee Media Market; recall, for example, the Right Cheddarsphere's lauding of Bucher's "crackdown" on vote fraud, a crackdown that consisted of a single plea-bargained case in two decades of District Attorneying. And it's the Charlie Sykes Stormtroopers who have been among those beating the drums loudest for the end to these sorts of accumulated sick-leave bennies for elected officials. Puts them in an awkward spot, I would bet--especially since the anti-Bucher, former Milwaukee County DA E. Michael McCann, has no sick leave benefit at all.

(I have occasionally wondered, though not out loud, of course, why Jessica McBride is the only WTMJ radio talker not to have gone off on sick leave, and now it kind of makes sense: She's married to $160k of sick leave benefits. LATE UPDATE: Oops, I guess she has!)

Look, I've made my case before. I understand that there are people on both sides of the aisle who disagree with me--conservatives who feel the benefit is too much for our budgets and unrealistic compared to the real world of the private sector; and liberals who can't believe lawmakers are willing to perk themselves but won't fix health care for the rest of us.

But the fact is that I have been, and will remain, consistent here: Paul Bucher could probably have made three, four, eight times his DA's salary working in the private sector (the coming years will undoubtedly be his most lucrative now that he's out of public life). If part of what kept him in the job--a job that our conservative friends think he did well--is that he knew he could pay a portion of his health care costs in retirement with accumulated sick leave funds, then that incentive worked, and we kept a solid public figure in office doing work for we the people.

I don't want to ignore the question of whether he legitimately accumulated those days; he might have, I suppose, skirted some of the ethical bounds that compel people to call in sick when they are, in fact, sick. But I don't have enough information to judge whether that really happened and, from my reading of the article, neither does the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They seem perfectly happy, though, to keep claiming scalps of all ideological stripes in their never-ending war on sick leave benefits.

In the meantime, pass the popcorn--some righty heads may be exploding Thursday. (It's days like this I wish I could listen to Sykes . . . wonder what he'll say?)

Bucher: My Wife Does Not Look Fat in That Dress

by folkbum

Waukesha County (Dissociated Press)--In response to a Waukesha Freeman essay written by his wife, Jessica McBride, former Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher (left) called a press conference today to assure everyone that McBride "does not look fat in that dress."

McBride's essay, which was published over the weekend, was laudatory of her husband and his career as Waukesha County's "top cop."

"The guy’s curriculum vitae is something like 40 pages long," McBride wrote. "Meals on Wheels. DARE. Crimestoppers. Boy Scouts. You name it. One recent year, he stood outside the Pick ‘n Save ringing bells in the cold for the Salvation Army.

"He was that kind of prosecutor."

Bucher, clearly embarrassed by the awkward public praise provided by his wife, said he felt the need to do something in return.

"Jessica is such a great wife," he said at the press conference this morning. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for her, even lie if I have to."

After presenting a photo of his wife wearing the dress in question (right), Bucher made his declaration: "My wife does not look fat in that dress. She just does not. I'm serious."

Bucher's statement also included some more things he wanted to make sure his wife was aware of. "That leak in the basement," he said, "I'll get to it next week."

He added, "And I wasn't looking at that red-head, I swear."

Bucher took only a few questions after he made his prepared statement. Some of the reporters in the room seemed incredulous. "Look, I will not say anything else about it," Bucher said, after being pressed by reporters. "This press conference is over."

McBride could not be reached for comment.

Selective memory on voter fraud prosecutions

Yesterday, Donovan Riley reached a plea bargain on his charges of voting twice in the 2000 presidential election. The allegations about Riley surfaced when the pro-school-voucher group All Children Matter--a group with problems of its own--targeted him, since he was running in the primary against voucher supporter Democrat Jeff Plale.

Local wingnut hero Waukesha County DA Paul Bucher, who this year lost his own primary against a guy who thought he was Batman, is being lauded by the conservative half of the Cheddarsphere today for securing the plea bargain. The plea bargain includes a number of provisions that Riley pleaded to, including the loss of his law licenses and a $10,000 fine, but no jail time--one of the perks of getting a plea bargain, I guess. Am I sounding repetitive about the plea bargain? It's for a reason. This reason:

Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher goes out strong by getting ex-State Senate candidate Donovan Riley to give up his law license [. . .] There's a difference between Waukesha and Milwaukee Counties. One set of prosecutors gets tough on vote fraud, while the other plea bargains.

I repeated the phrase "plea bargain" so much because I wanted its appearance at the end of Sean Hackbarth's post to stand out. See, the conservative half of the Cheddarsphere loves them some Paul Bucher and hates them some E. Michael McCann, the outgoing DA of Milwaukee County, and they try to put down McCann every chance they get. Sean here is typical; Owen and Wiggy make the same implication that McCann is somehow light on vote fraud prosecutions. But Sean seems to miss the point entirely that Bucher pulled a McCann--negotiating a plea deal instead of throwing the book at Riley.

And here's what's even funnier: The story Sean linked to (a link I included, so you can read it, too), is the story of McCann's prosecution of a group that fraudulently filled out absentee ballots during the 2003 recall of County Board President Lee Holloway. And in the story, we learn that McCann won jail time for a convicted fraudster--something Paul Bucher didn't get in the Riley case. The story was mainly about how McCann cut a deal with seven defendants on dozens of charges, securing more voter fraud convictions in a single day than Paul Bucher has in his career.

Many of the conservative bloggers, I think, are still upset over the tire-slashing episode from 2004, which McCann did plead out. That secured actual convictions for four of the five perpetrators who otherwise would have walked (the one who didn't plead got a not guilty verdict from the jury). The bloggers wanted the slashers to face the firing squad, or something, but those four convictions (again, on one day) are still more than Bucher ever got in his entire career.

For the record, want to know the total number of convictions for voter fraud that Paul Bucher has earned in his entire career? One--Donovan Riley.

Republican AG Candidate Breaks Seatbelt Law, with picture of BucherMobile

I do get email sometimes; in fact, sometimes the ones with pictures are the most interesting. This week's pictures--the ones that weren't spam, anyway--included this one of Wisconsin Attorney General candidate Paul Bucher. From my correspondent:

I just sent you a picture from my cell phone account of Paul Bucher riding on top of the trunk of his convertible after the Cedarburg parade on the 4th [of July]. The funny thing is - this was 30 minutes after the end of the parade and a mile north of the parade route. His car was PACKED with people - probably 8 in total. When I originally pulled behind them, they had Paul Bucher for AG signs on display. I think one of them saw me behind them with my camera, because they immediately pulled over and Paul jumped down into the seat.

Funny how a candidate for Attorney General doesn't seem to think the seat belt laws mean anything.

When I'm leaving school at the end of the day, I try to time my leaving such that I don't have to deal with the traffic ceated by 16 and 17-year-old bad drivers, and their passengers, who feel that driving off from the high school is a perfect time to do a little display for your friends, both in and out of the car. Often, they're hanging out windows or riding on hoods, blaring music.

My correspondent says nothing about music, but I do wonder if that may have been the only thing to distingush Bucher's joyride from your average teenager's. Of course, the teens aren't running around pretending to be big law-and-order types, either.