Plea deal for Heaggan-Brown
A former Milwaukee police officer gets a plea deal in a sex crimes case.
Dominique Heaggan-Brown, the former Milwaukee police officer who fatally shot Sylville Smith in 2016, setting off of days of violent unrest in parts of the Sherman Park neighborhood, resolved his unrelated sex crimes case with a plea bargain Thursday.
While the shooting was under investigation, Heaggan-Brown, 26, was charged in October 2016 with sexually assaulting two men, in July and August, at his apartment and taking nude photos of them.
On Thursday, prosecutors filed amended charges of false imprisonment, three counts of soliciting prostitutes and two counts of capturing an intimate photo without consent. Heaggan-Brown pleaded no contest to the false imprisonment count and guilty to the others.
All the charges are felonies. All but the capturing image charges carry a maximum penalty of three years in prison and three years of extended supervision. The image charge maximums are 18 months in prison and two years of extended supervision.
Two of the original charges were second-degree sexual assault of an intoxicated or unconscious victim, punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
His case had been set for trial next month. Now his sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 20.
The original criminal complaint portrayed Heaggan-Brown as a sexual predator who assaulted men after drinking with them, paying other men for sex and boasting about special privileges he had as a Milwaukee police officer.
He was fired from the department shortly after being charged with sexual assault, and in December 2016 was charged in Smith’s shooting, only the second Milwaukee police officer to be charged in an on-duty homicide in modern history.
A jury in June found Heaggan-Brown not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide in Smith’s death during a foot chase.
Earlier that day, Smith’s parents and estate filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city and its former officer in federal court.
According to the original sexual assault complaint, Heaggan-Brown met one of his alleged victims through a Facebook post about musicians. Heaggan-Brown was a rapper. That man said Heaggan-Brown took him to an east side bar and he had several drinks while they watched news coverage of the Sherman Park unrest.
The man said he next remembered waking up while being assaulted by Heaggan-Brown, who took the man to a hospital about 4:20 a.m. and told the staff he had too much to drink. The man later said he felt drugged.
A second man told investigators he’d gone to a strip club with Heaggan-Brown and others in July and got very drunk before waking up in the defendant’s bed with no memory of how he got there.
Police later found video on Heaggan-Brown’s phone of him having sexual contact with the man while he appeared to be passed out.