Charges dropped against Suring superintendent

A Brown County judge has dismissed false imprisonment charges against former Suring School District Superintendent Kelly Casper, saying the criminal complaint did not provide enough information to conclude she committed the alleged crimes.

Casper, 52, of Coleman, was charged Feb. 28 with six counts of false imprisonment. The complaint alleged that she took six girls, ages 14 to 17, one by one into a small restroom in January and ordered them to strip to their underwear to be searched for vaping devices.

The Suring School Board suspended Casper with pay shortly after the charges were filed, and it approved a resignation/separation agreement with Casper, effective June 30, following a closed session June 8.

Judge Marc Hammer dismissed the complaint June 21 “without prejudice,” meaning prosecutors have a right to refile these or other charges. A group of about 50 of Casper’s family, friends and staff members applauded after he made his ruling.

Oconto County District Attorney Edward Burke had concluded earlier that the incident did not fit the legal definition of strip searches but filed the false imprisonment charges on grounds the girls did not feel they were allowed to leave.

Defense attorney Corey Chirafisi argued in a motion to dismiss that school district policy “authorizes the district administrator to take reasonable measures related to the board’s expectation that the promotion and display of tobacco and related products on school property … is prohibited.”

Chirafisi also said Casper followed guidelines for contraband searches spelled out in a Wisconsin attorney general publication, “Safe School Legal Resource Manual.”

“It is implicit (from the guidelines) that she had the right to move the students to a private place away from other students in order to search them,” he wrote.

In a response to the defense motion, Burke countered that “the students were led to believe Casper had the authority to do what she was doing because of her position as administrator.”

During the June 21 hearing, Burke said there is no question Casper had the authority to search the girls, but the question is whether she went too far in conducting the search.

“Once those girls were taken from the school proper down into this nurse’s office, the complaint says, ‘They shut the door behind us,’ they were placed in the bathroom, their clothes were removed,” Burke said. “I don’t know what else could be more confining than that. What are they supposed to do after they are placed in that room with no clothing?”

Chirafisi countered that once the state conceded Casper had the authority to conduct a search, the false imprisonment charge falls apart.

In a school setting, the standard under law for a search for tobacco products is “reasonable suspicion,” he said.

“Why wouldn’t she be able to take them into a room — forget the strip search for a minute, she’s not charged with that,” Chirafisi said. “If she puts them in a room to confine them to do something that she’s allowed to do, which is search because of reasonable suspicion, I think we’re done.”

None of the students objected to the confinement, and Casper believed she was acting within her legal authority, he added.

Hammer asked Burke why he did not charge Casper with conducting illegal strip searches, but the district attorney said discrepancies in the students’ stories and a review of the statutes made him unsure whether he could make that charge stick.

One of the students told Hammer that some of the defense statements weren’t entirely accurate.

“Miss Casper told us that if we did not do this, and follow her to a room with her while she searched us, that we were just going to get into more trouble than we already would have been in,” the girl said.

After the searches the girls were forced to sit in an office separated from each other until the end of the school day, she added.

Hammer said he was unable to find evidence in the criminal complaint that the students objected to their confinement or that Casper knew she had no authority to confine them, two key elements to finding probable cause to level charges.

“It’s very, very difficult for me to conclude from these facts that there was a confinement without consent,” Hammer said.

The case was clearly brought in good faith and without any agenda or ill will, the judge said.

“I’m just not able at this point in time, when I look at the law as applied … to be able to say that the state could meet a probability standard as relates to multiple elements of the false imprisonment charge,” Hammer said.