(Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
Joshua Sylvester was fired from the Kenosha Police Department on August 23, 2022 after Police Internal Affairs and the Kenosha DA’s office said he sexually assaulted an intoxicated prisoner at the hospital. Now, he claims that being fired was a mistake and he wants his job back. “This letter is to inform the Police and Fire Commission Board that I am filing a formal grievance regarding my termination as a Kenosha Police Officer. The reason for my termination is not clear to me and it is unjust,” said Sylvester in a November 11, 2022 letter to the City’s Police and Fire Commission. He goes on to say that he deserved a hearing in front of the commission and that he hasn’t seen any evidence against him. He then wrote that he expects to be reinstated as a police officer. Sylvester wrote another letter dated December 9, 2022 in which he claims the received a direct deposit from the City of Kenosha for $371.29 for uniform allowance and that somehow sustains his complaint. The letter was signed by the former cop, but reads like it was written by an attorney, using words like “incongruent” which this author had to google.
Sylvester was still a probationary police officer when Chief Eric Larsen fired him, so he is not entitled to a hearing under Wisconsin statutes. Sylvester made his first court appearance on August 23, 2022 and his wife paid his $15,000 bail on Halloween, after more than two months behind bars.
Allegations
According to the 8-page criminal complaint, Sylvester is accused of some very serious actions. The below allegations are graphic in nature and intended to be read by adults:
Former Kenosha Police Officer Joshua Sylvester was at Aurora Hospital on August 18, 2022 monitoring an intoxicated 24-year-old woman who he arrested for OWI after crashing into a tree and losing consciousness. KCE is not naming the victim. Sylvester inserted his fingers into the victim’s vagina several times while at the hospital. He also pulled out his penis and asked her to touch it. She refused but he forced her to. He added his cell phone number to hers as “Officer Josh” and sent himself nude photos of the woman from the woman’s phone. A Kenosha County Sheriff’s Detective viewed body camera footage, some of which had to be recovered by I.T. staff due to Sylvester turning off the camera, and the footage supported all of the victim’s allegations. Sylvester even tried to cover the body-camera with his hand, but he was still seen sexually assaulting the victim. Sylvester later took the victim to the jail, but before they got into the squad car, he asked her not to “have a conversation about any of that in the car” because the squad cars have microphones and cameras. The victim didn’t initially want to tell her story but her friend and her Dad told her to go to the Kenosha Police Department. They met with Kenosha Lt. Joseph Nosalik, the commander of the Internal Affairs unit. Last night, August 22, 2022, Kenosha Sheriff’s detectives executed a search warrant at Sylvester’s home and he immediately knew why there were there. His wife told police that Sylvester washed his uniform once to remove blood, but police found no uniform in the home. Sylvester waived his fifth amendment rights and made unreasonable excuses. When asked why he had vaginal secretions on his hands, he said it was because he “stopped her from masturbating.” He also said he held her hand to pray. He denied sending the nude photos to himself.
According to police insiders, the sexual assault is undeniable and was captured on Sylvester’s body-worn camera. The Police and Fire Commission will review his letter the Tuesday, December 20, 2022 at 9am. He is next due in court on January 20, 2022.
He faces more than 40 years in the Wisconsin Prison System if convicted.
21 Responses
Hey Kevin: You should publish a link to this guy’s letter. Your readers would find it interesting. Attorneys are not the only groups of people who have large vocabularies. Maybe this guy has a decent vocabulary. I can’t cite a study, but I suspect that sex offenders and white -collar criminals are among the most intelligent of all groups of criminals.
Although there have been no studies done, I would assume the correlation of rapists to poor vocabulary is high. I didn’t want to post the letter. The KN can do their own work
To Kevin and this poster: It really doesn’t matter if sex offenders, as a group, function at an intellectually lower level than the general population. This guy was hired as a police officer. I would hope that the selection process determined that he was smart enough to be a cop. That means that he should know how to write and use a thesaurus. By using a thesaurus, anyone can find and use a big cool word in their writing.
BTW: There are many studies that address IQ of sex offenders compared to other criminal groups. This was copied and pasted from the abstract of one of these many studies:
“IQs of rapists were compared to IQs of nonrapist prisoners convicted of violent crimes and nonrapist prisoners convicted of nonviolent crimes. Subjects were 136 male convicted felons in the Kentucky State Penitentiary. Determination of violent vs. nonviolent crimes other than rape was made upon consultation with a Kentucky Commonwealth Attorney. The results revealed significantly lower IQs for rapists compared to nonrapists convicted of violent crimes and compared to heterogeneous nonrapist convicts.”
Ruff, C. F., Templer, D. I., & Ayers, J. L. (1976). The intelligence of rapists. Archives of sexual behavior, 5(4), 327-329.
Most likely the selection process determined he was of a demographic that was “needed” to be hired. Low applicant numbers and the affirmative action hiring policy unfortunately place some (some, not all) individuals into jobs they are not qualified for. The Police and Fire Commission has allowed KPD and KFD to hire people who have scored less than 40/100 on the written exams in the name of diversity. It is sad that the city will assert to some people that they are a great candidate, and then a year later are firing them. Now these people are dumbfounded as to why if they indeed were so great, are now being let go……. Its a disservice to the applicant/employee, as well as the citizens they are serving.
Psych exams and interviews are never fool proof, because they’re conducted by human beings. Eventually the people who were not fit are weeded out by their own inappropriate actions. Thankfully, this “accused rapist” showed his true self quickly, and he was smart enough to rape someone while on his own assigned camera…….
Make room Parkside, you have another professor headed your way!!
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Kevin, will you please ask Chief Larsen for a comment about this topic?
Has the Kenosha Police Department hired people that did not make the minimum qualifications? Was this one of those candidates? If so shouldn’t Chief Larsen also be responsible for the suspects actions since he put him there when he shouldn’t have been? Assuming this was one of those type of hires.
If this suspect hired in without a reduction to standards, has the KPD ever hired anyone prior that has failed the testing?
You did a great job sniffing out the corruption at UW Parkside, now it’s time to get the records and ask the same questions from Chief Larsen before he slithers away.
Poorly written criminal complaint. “Still he was seen sexually assaulting the victim” is one of several conclusions rather than facts. What exactly was shown in the video?
Can’t the DA’s office write a proper complaint?
Ummmm…lets stay focused everyone…this guy sexually assaulted a female prisoner in the hospital but now wants his job back. He should be getting jail time not his job back!!!
Maybe while in jail they could just hire him as a jail guard? He can then work on his lesson planning for his part time professorship at Parkside.
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This guy probably wants a lot of things back, but obviously he should not ever be a police officer again, anywhere. Besides, he should be in prison soon, correct? That would make it difficult to return to work as a police officer.
Let’s hope the City Fire & Police Commission doesn’t take any re-employment recommendations from DA Mike Graveley.
The sad thing is! He feels what he did was OK, Thats the issue here, in his mind he feels that he is above the law. I know people that got worse for a lot less crime, I sure hope are DA takes this case to its Limit!!!!! Maybe the DA Will go after him like he did to the poor guy asking someone to slow down in a school parking lot … We need are DA office cleaned out and get these Idiots out of office !!!!!!
Nah….this guy is too black for Gravely to go after.
Once Again, another one that thinks he is above the law!!!!!
Substantial evidence and recorded, This Guy better not get a plea deal .
Gee. I wonder how the other criminals will criminals will treat a former cop. Lol good luck scumbag.
Anybody go to the 9:00 meeting today where he was listed on the agenda? I got to City Hall at about 2 minutes to 9:00 and there was a notice that they changed the meeting location to one of the museums so I just continued with my errands and went home. I guess they were expecting a pretty good turnout, hopefully Kevin was able to be there.
You can’t fix stupid!! Nice act of him saying that it isn’t clear to him why he was fired? Nice try guy, but you were a police officer and took an oath!!!
If I was his wife, I would have left his ass in jail and not look back!!! So disgusting on what he did and so embarrassing for the KPD!!
How Stupid !!! it’s all on his body camera, this guy better get jail time.