No-show juror leads to mistrial
Man accused of sending threats to two lawyers
The case against a man charged with making death threats against two prominent Milwaukee lawyers ended in a mistrial Wednesday after a juror failed to return to continue deliberations that began Tuesday.
It marked a strange end to a strange case.
It began Monday when Franklyn Gimbel and David Gruber, men accustomed to the rough-and-tumble of public life and litigation, testified that even they found the messages that got through their firm’s websites alarming.
Whoever sent the anonymous, unhinged, antiSemitic rants threatened to kill Gimbel and to have Gruber’s adult son murdered. Detectives explained how they traced the messages, sent a year and a half apart, back to a computer owned by James C. Faustmann and one he appeared to use.
Faustmann, 42, of Brookfield, went to trial on two counts of using a computerized communications system to threaten someone with physical harm, and one count of bail jumping. A new trial date has been set for May — after a February trial in Racine on similar charges over threatening and intimidating messages sent to Gov. Scott Walker.
In the Milwaukee case, testimony revealed Faustmann was never a client of either Gimbel or Gruber, and each victim testified they had never encountered him in any context.
Gimbel has been a lawyer in Milwaukee for 56 years, a federal prosecutor, criminal defense attorney and leader of the state bar. When Faustmann became obsessed with him in 2014, according to the charge, Gimbel had been in the news a lot as the chairman of the Wisconsin Center District, the taxing authority that operates the convention center and nearby concert and sports venues.
Gruber is particularly well-known from appearing in frequent commercials for his Gruber Law Offices, and for supporting charities and local sports teams.
Gimbel was threatened in May 2014, and detectives traced the message to a computer at Faustmann’s apartment in Racine. It revealed hundreds of searches about Gimbel and repeated visits to his firm’s website and news stories about him. Faustmann was charged that June.
While free on bail in that case, Faustmann was charged in Racine County in September 2014.
On Jan. 1, 2016, when Faustmann was living at a Waukesha rooming house, evidence suggests he left the disturbing message on the Gruber law firm site from a computer maintained in the facility’s common area. Jurors saw security video of Faustmann leaving his room and entering the basement, where the computer was located, shortly before the time the threat landed at Gruber’s office.
Faustmann testified that he did not send the messages or know who did. He suggested others who had access to his Racine apartment might have threatened Gimbel, and that dozens of people had access to the Waukesha computer. He said he often forgot to log off his email account.
Later in closing arguments, Assistant District Attorney Benjamin Lindsey asked jurors if someone who claimed to have top-secret clearances while in the military, as Faustmann did, would leave his email account open on a public computer.
Lindsey also called a surprise rebuttal witness who had only come forward Monday night. Faustmann’s stepfather said that on two occasions last year, Faustmann admitted to sending the emails.
Once, he said, he asked Faustmann why he kept sending emails and he replied, “Because I hate (expletive) lawyers.” In December, Faustmann was on a computer in the stepfather’s home and remarked, “Ever since I sent those lawyers those emails, no one will hire me,” the stepfather testified.
Faustmann’s attorney, Michael Plaisted, sought a mistrial, but the judge instead allowed Faustmann to rebut the rebuttal witness. He denied admitting the crimes and said his stepfather, a retired police officer, had been pushing him to take a plea deal in the case.
But on Wednesday, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jean Kies had no real alternative but to grant Plaisted’s renewed motion for mistrial after the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department couldn’t find the missing juror, Amanda Dunham, by 1:30 p.m. A body attachment order for her arrest remains in effect.
Faustmann could have agreed to proceed with 11 jurors but could not be required to leave his fate to the depleted panel.
It’s not the first time a Milwaukee juror has walked out amid deliberations. In 2012, a woman left for a Cancun vacation during a shooting case. The judge fined her $300 when she got back.