Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced today that Timothy Madson, a former Jefferson County Detective Sergeant and former supervisor of the Jefferson County Drug Task Force, was sentenced to eight months in jail as a condition of probation following his conviction on one felony count of Misconduct in Public Office.
Waukesha County Judge Lloyd Carter, who presided over the four-day jury trial in Jefferson County, withheld sentence and placed the defendant on 18 months of probation. As a condition of probation, he ordered Madson to serve 240 days in jail. Judge Carter ordered that the first 60 of those days be served straight time with no release privileges, and he granted work release privileges on the remaining 180 days. As further conditions of probation, the defendant was ordered to make $10,000 restitution to the Jefferson County Drug Task Force, pay a $5,000 fine plus costs, and provide a DNA sample. Madson faced a maximum sentence of three and a half years of confinement and a $10,000 fine.
Madson served as the supervisor of the Jefferson County Drug Task Force from 2003 until late 2011. Between 2006 and 2011, Madson wrote more than $20,000 in checks to himself from the Task Force undercover buy fund, which was permissible if used as reimbursement for expenses. However, Madson converted funds to his own use and hid his actions by manipulating the expense reporting system. Madson reported hundreds of bogus expenses and attributed most of those expenses to cases worked by Task Force investigators. Madson, by virtue of his position, had control over this account and was responsible for approving the disbursement of these funds, and the jury found his actions to be beyond his lawful authority.
Assistant Attorney General David W. Maas represented the State. This investigation was conducted by the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) at the request of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department.
