Kirk Bangstad is a prominent liberal political figure in Wisconsin and owner of the Minocqua Brewing Company.
This week, he was arrested by the Oneida County Sheriff’s Department for criminal defamation.
On Wednesday, Kirk Bangstad, owner of the Minocqua Brewing Company, was arrested in Minocqua for criminal defamation.
Bangstad has been involved in a four year long civil defamation case against the owner of the Lakeland Times.
As reported last October, Forest County Judge Leon Stenz ruled Bangstad liable for $750,000 in damages after his defamatory comments against the newspaper owner Gregg Walker.
Bangstad says that he paid Walker $50,000 and his insurance company paid about $530,000 after a settlement made two weeks ago.
It’s not yet known whether the previous defamation case has anything to do with this arrest.
This week, he said he was driving through Minocqua for some routine brewery maintenance when he was pulled over by a town of Minocqua policeman.
“And they said, ‘do you know why you're being pulled over?’ And I said, ‘no clue, because I wasn't speeding.’ And they're like, ‘well, I've been told by the Oneida County Sheriff we have to detain you because you've been charged with two counts of criminal defamation,’” said Bangstad.
Bangstad says he doesn’t know specifics of the criminal defamation charges, and that the Oneida County Sheriff’s Department wouldn’t tell him. Charges have not been filed.
“It's very scary, because when you're locked up, you know, I've never, I've never been locked up before, so it was very scary,” said Bangstad.
Bangstad says he was released about two hours later.
WXPR reached out to Sheriff Grady Hartman, who said in an email that he believed it would be inappropriate to comment on an active criminal case and declined an interview at this time.
In Wisconsin, criminal defamation is considered a Class A misdemeanor that occurs when someone is spreading false, harmful information to a third party.
Bangstad said the experience with law enforcement was very scary.
“I'm absolutely fine with law enforcement. I mean, you know, I have privilege. I'm a white male who's never been in trouble before, and so I generally think cops are on my side. This is the first time in my life that I'm like, I don't know if these guys are on my side, because I shouldn't even be here,” said Bangstad.
The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, a civil rights organization, has called for the repeal of criminal defamation laws.
They argue that defamation cases are better handled in civil courts and that they are arbitrarily enforced.
Bangstad says he’s planning on suing in federal court as soon as possible.
He says he has a court date set on Monday to discuss these criminal defamation charges.
Editor's note: This story was updated to clarify Bangstad had been arrested for criminal defamation, but not charged as of the time of this story posting.
