A former police officer in the Village of Cleveland has filed a lawsuit against the Village, its Village Clerk/Director of Public Works, and the President of the Village Board.
Jacob Schweigl submitted the complaint to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Green Bay Division, claiming unlawful termination.
In the twelve-page document, Schweigl claims he became the “subject of unwarranted scrutiny” in November 2020 when he began voicing concerns regarding the at the time Chief of Police, Timothy Barber.
Schweigl reported, “concerns regarding alleged time theft and unethical and unsafe activity within the Department to Village Clerk and Director of Public Works Stacy Grunwald with the hopes that she would investigate or at least address his concerns.”
However, Grunwald allegedly dismissed the allegations, and “fabricated allegations against Schweigl that were proven to be meritless.”
Schweigl also claimed that Grunwald accessed his private and personal materials kept on file, restricted him from attending administrative meetings, and spread false rumors about him.
Schweigl claimed this “orchestrated campaign to disparage” him kept him from being named the next Chief of Police.
The suit states that the hiring process was initially intended to be done internally, but when a secondary candidate dropped out and Schweigl was the sole candidate, Grunwald and Cleveland Village President Jake Holzwart changed course, and began searching outside of the department.
An investigation into Grunwald’s “meddling”, but “quickly abandoned it without any conclusions.”
Schweigl claims Holzwart “acknowledged that Grunwald overstepped her authority… yet the Village took no measures to address or rectify her conduct.”
In April of 2023, Schweigl states that he met with Holzwart and Village Board Member Jason Berdyck where he learned he was not selected to be Chief, but instead was being terminated due to budget cuts.
Holzwart allegedly told Schweigl that the Village “no longer had the funds to support a full-time patrol officer position,” despite the fact that the 2023 Police Department budget allowed for one full-time Chief of Police position, one full-time patrol officer position, and four part-time patrol officer positions.
The four part-time officers were kept on the staff, which is contradictory to state law which states that, in villages of less than 5,000 citizens, part-time officers should be laid off before full-time officers.
Additionally, the man who was hired to be the Chief resigned, reportedly due to being told he could not work with Schweigl, who was the only full-time officer on staff. Schweigl also claimed that he submitted an open records request, which was ignored for six months. was ignored.
Schweigl is asking to receive back pay, benefit compensation, and compensatory damages, and to be instated as the Chief of Police in Cleveland.
The full document can be seen below.
