KENOSHA, Wis. — Kenosha County has allegedly spent somewhere between $50,000 and $90,000 in taxpayer money — and possibly more — on a Milwaukee law firm to keep a two-page memo about this reporter’s butt crack secret, to defend a judge’s decision to ban this reporter from photographing a public courtroom, and now, seemingly, to try to make this reporter pay for the privilege of appealing a ruling he believes was wrong.

That is the emerging picture from a review of court filings across three separate legal proceedings, all of which appear to trace back to the actions of two people: Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Chad Kerkman and Kenosha County Executive Samantha Kerkman — his former wife.

Attorney Samuel C. Hall Jr., a named partner and managing partner at Crivello, Nichols & Hall S.C. in Milwaukee, has represented county interests in all three proceedings. It is highly unusual for a named partner at a firm of this size to personally handle municipal defense work at the trial and appellate level. Named partners typically command billing rates $100 to $200 per hour higher than associate attorneys. It is this reporter’s belief that Samantha Kerkman personally requested that Hall handle this matter himself — a decision that, if accurate, would have made the taxpayer bill significantly higher than if an associate attorney had done the work. Hall did not immediately respond to a press inquiry submitted by Kenosha County Eye on May 16, 2026.

The Memo About the Butt Crack

It started, as far as this reporter can tell, with a memo.

On September 4, 2025, Clerk of Courts Rebecca Matoska-Mentink authored a two-page memorandum addressed to Kenosha County Chief Judge Wynne Laufenberg, with a carbon copy to Chad Kerkman. The subject line: “Intake Courtroom 157 and Photos.”

The memo documented statements made by courthouse employees about this reporter — including, according to the partially unredacted version already in the public court record, an account of an occasion when this reporter knelt to photograph a criminal defendant and his backside was briefly exposed. Another court user, according to the memo, commented on it.

Kenosha County, represented by Hall, has spent tens of thousands of dollars in estimated taxpayer money fighting to keep secret the identities of the government employees who contributed statements to that memo — including, seemingly, whoever else may have commented on this reporter’s butt crack beyond what is already visible in the redacted version.

The county has never disputed that the memo exists or that it contains that content. It has argued that disclosing the identities of the employees who gave statements would subject them to retaliation.

This reporter has been formally recognized as a bona fide journalist by seven of eight branches of Kenosha County Circuit Court. The one branch that has never recognized him is Judge Chad Kerkman’s.

The Identical Redactions

Here is what Kenosha County has not explained.

Months before submitting a public records request to Matoska-Mentink, this reporter obtained a copy of the same September 4, 2025 memorandum through a separate public records request directed to Judge Chad Kerkman. Kerkman produced a redacted version.

When this reporter subsequently received Matoska-Mentink’s redacted version — the county’s purportedly independent response to a separate request — the two documents appeared to be physically identical. Not merely similar. Identical. The redaction boxes appear in the same positions. The scanning artifacts, including what appear to be dust marks and page imperfections captured during the original scan, appear identical in both copies.

If accurate, that would mean the county did not independently redact the memorandum at all. It seemingly copied Judge Kerkman’s version and handed it to this reporter as its own.

That is why this reporter’s October 13, 2025 records request letter told Matoska-Mentink: “Remember, Chad isn’t your attorney, Joey is. Don’t ask Chad for help with redacting. He can’t give you legal advice.”

He allegedly already had.

The county has never addressed this allegation directly in any court filing.

The Photography Ban and the Federal Lawsuit

Separately, Judge Chad Kerkman allegedly directed Court Commissioner William Michel II to deny this reporter’s request to photograph proceedings in Intake Courtroom 157 — the same courtroom referenced in the butt crack memo.

This reporter is the only journalist in Wisconsin, to his knowledge, banned from photographing in a specific courtroom other than the presiding judge’s own. That ban spawned a federal First Amendment lawsuit, Mathewson v. Kerkman, in which this reporter argued his constitutional right to photograph public court proceedings was unlawfully denied.

Hall represented both Judge Kerkman and Commissioner Michel in that federal lawsuit. All briefing on the motion to dismiss is complete. The case now sits before the federal judge, who could issue a ruling in weeks or months — or longer. No hearing date has been set. Commissioner Michel, a defendant in that lawsuit, was recently terminated from his position with Kenosha County. The stated reason for his termination has not been publicly disclosed.

Hall’s representation of two defendants in federal court, on top of his circuit court and appellate work in the open records case, accounts for the estimated fee range of $50,000 to $90,000 in taxpayer money — all of it allegedly flowing from decisions that appear to trace back to Judge Chad Kerkman.

The Ex-Wife’s Role

Kenosha County Executive Samantha Kerkman — Chad Kerkman’s former wife — is a named respondent in the open records appeal. Court filings allege that she coordinated with Matoska-Mentink regarding how to respond to this reporter’s records request, authorized or approved the expenditure of taxpayer funds to retain Hall’s firm for the purpose of assisting in the denial, and was motivated in part by a desire to protect her former husband from embarrassment and scrutiny.

Samantha Kerkman has denied those allegations through her attorney. She has never addressed them publicly.

This reporter has published numerous stories about Samantha Kerkman’s tenure as County Executive. Several of those stories have been unflattering. It is this reporter’s opinion — and only his opinion — that her alleged involvement in the effort to suppress this memo and now to financially punish him for appealing may be connected to that coverage. That opinion is not established fact. Readers can draw their own conclusions.

Samantha Kerkman has told this reported many times “My Ex-Husband is not gay.” Kenosha County Eye has never made such an accusation. People likely inferred this from the fact that Chad and former ADA T. Clair Binger like to take shirtless photographs while embracing, and wear LGBT clothing publicly. “My kids read your site,” said Samantha. Samantha was seemingly upset that this publication wouldn’t assert that Judge Chad Kerkman isn’t a homosexual, something that we won’t do — we don’t know, and we don’t care.

“The fact that a former husband and wife appear to be working in tandem — seemingly to silence a journalist who has reported truthfully on both of them — is deeply alarming,” Mathewson said. “Samantha Kerkman is allegedly asking me to pay the county up to $50,000. I once admired her. But a county executive who appears to weaponize her office against critics who report truthfully on her conduct is not just a problem for me — that should make every resident of this county nervous. To me, this feels purely retaliatory. And if it is, it is an abuse of the public trust she was elected to uphold.”

What is documented is this: Samantha Kerkman is the county executive. The county is allegedly spending up to $90,000 in taxpayer money on legal fees across proceedings that appear to stem from her former husband’s decisions. And through her attorney, she is now asking a court to order this reporter — a middle-class, self-represented journalist — to reimburse the county for an unspecified portion of those fees, on the theory that his appeal of a ruling he believes was legally wrong is frivolous.

The Frivolousness Motion

On May 14, 2026 — the same day Hall’s merits response brief in the appeal was due — Hall filed a motion asking the Wisconsin Court of Appeals to declare this reporter’s appeal frivolous and award Kenosha County its attorney fees.

The motion argues that this reporter’s appellate arguments lack legal authority and have no merit.

Days before this motion, Hall sent an overnight letter via FedEx, threatening, in essence to bankrupt this author, if he didn’t drop the appeal.

This reporter filed his response brief the same day, arguing that the motion is itself without merit, that his primary argument — that the circuit court violated a mandatory procedural statute by ruling on a motion to dismiss while relying on evidence outside the pleadings — was fully briefed in the circuit court and has a clear legal basis, and that filing a frivolousness motion against a pro se appellant who raised a good-faith challenge has a chilling effect on access to the appellate process for self-represented litigants throughout Wisconsin.

All briefing in the appeal is now complete. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals has held the frivolousness motion in abeyance pending its decision on the merits. Both the appeal and the federal case are now entirely in judges’ hands — this reporter has done everything he can do in both proceedings and is waiting, along with everyone else, for decisions that could come in weeks, months, or longer.

If a panel of appellate judges were to grant Hall’s motion — which this reporter believes is unlikely — this reporter could be ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees to the county that has allegedly spent up to $90,000 trying to keep a memo about his butt crack secret.

What Hall Was Asked

On May 16, 2026, this reporter submitted a press inquiry to Hall asking three questions: whether Samantha Kerkman personally authorized the frivolousness motion; approximately how much Kenosha County has paid his firm across these proceedings; and what his response is to the argument that the motion chills pro se appellate access.

Hall did not immediately respond to the inquiry.

This story will be updated if a response is received. It won’t be.