(Photo Courtesy of Optic Light Photograph, LLC)
Tonight, the County Finance and Administration committee will meet for the last time at 4:30pm to decide the fate of the embattled Bill Beth, little cousin of Sheriff David Beth. We released the explosive report that detailed the charges against Beth that lead to his double demotion from Captain to Sergeant and many hundreds read through at least part of it. The committee held a hearing 5 evenings and heard more than 15 hours of testimony.
Kenosha County alleged that Beth broke many rules when acting in his official capacity as a Captain. They said he approved many hours of comp time after he was told not to. He didn’t have the authority to do it. The County Board would have had to approve this expenditure. In fact, another Captain was pushed out of the department for the same thing. Kenosha County hired two private investigators with extensive law enforcement investigation experience to investigate the allegations. They found in the investigation that everyone told the truth and their stories lined up, with the exception of Beth. He was not truthful in the investigation they concluded. He was also accused of gross insubordination – a fellow Captain described it as “the worst case of insubordination I’ve seen in my decades-long career.”
Beth’s older cousin, Sheriff David Beth promoted his cousin many times – and quickly. Many thought the young Captain was playing “out of his league.” He got over-confident and used the “my cousin is the boss” card one too many times. The two had more than one shouting match heard by many present. Just as quickly as the Sheriff promoted Bill, he demoted him by two ranks. He was placed in the basement of the court-house to the undesirable position of conveyance supervisor. This is likely due to the fact the Beth was alleged to lie during this incident. It would be hard to have him interact with the public. He would also have a tough time testifying in court.
The majority of this committee was at first expected to play politics and reverse the demotion. But once the several-hundred-page document was released, they had little choice. The democrat-controlled committee voted to hold the hearing in secret. Beth told his attorneys to block the release of the records. The KCE prevailed. The serious allegations would have been potentially hidden forever, so the committee could have acted with impunity and without accountability because no one would know what they voted about. Now the process was made to be transparent, not by the government, but by citizens not taking “no” for an answer.
Our many sources tell us that the committee was faced with evidence that could not be ignored. The committee will vote to uphold the Sheriff’s department demotion of Sergeant Bill Beth. The important thing to watch tonight: which of the members vote in favor of Beth despite the slam-dunk case? We’ll talk about that later.
