Prosecutor’s Special Diversion Program for Female Defendants
Originally Published July 27, 2023
Female defendants and prosecutor Daniel Steffen of Burnett County, Wisconsin came to a mutually beneficial arrangement where in exchange for sex the females would receive leniency in their criminal cases.
Steffen and the women he was prosecuting would exchange texts and meet at his house, or his office, for sex which he secretly videotaped.
The criminal complaint against him stated that:
‘While the defendant and Victim #1 are still engaged in sex, the defendant looks at the camera, sticks his tongue out, and winks several times,’ and can be heard repeatedly telling the victim, ‘Who’s in charge?’
Indeed, who is in charge?
Steffen’s and the women’s sexual arrangement came to an end when “Victim #1” openly told people she was having sex with the county prosecutor in exchange for leniency in her pending criminal cases. According to reports, there were at least 3 known females engaging in similar arrangements with Steffen.
One might think that Steffen would face a slew of charges of sexual coercion, extortion, taking bribes, and corrupting criminal prosecutions. But Steffen was prosecuted and convicted only for secretly videotaping the sex acts with the women without their permission, for which the judge sentenced him to 18 months in prison. This suggests that the sexual arrangement between Steffen and the women while extremely immoral and illegal, was still consensual.
But was justice served? What about the women who willingly paid bribes of sex in order to subvert their criminal cases? Are they ‘victims’ merely because their crimes were captured on video without their knowledge? There is no expectation of privacy for people engaging in crimes, and exchanging sex for abuse of prosecutorial discretion is illegal.
In the end, no one was held accountable for the actual corruption and the sex-bribe scandal.
Which begs the question, ‘Who’s in charge’ of these decisions if not other morally bankrupt prosecutors?
© Vladek Filler