For privacy protection we will refer to a sexual assault victim as Jane Doe. This story briefly recounts a sexual assault.
Iron County Circuit Court Judge Anthony Stella Jr. is refusing to release records of what he and a prosecutor said at a court hearing in a criminal sexual assault case.
Stella and his staff refuse to allow the victim to purchase a transcript of the sentencing hearing of her assailant.
Meanwhile, the judge and his staff have refused Wisconsin Justice Initiative’s attempt to purchase a digital audio recording of the hearing.
In both instances, the judge claims only parties to the case are entitled to the records, relying on his blanket policy.
Jane Doe contacted WJI about the case and said both Stella and Iron County District Attorney Matthew Tingstad made unsavory comments about her and to her during the June hearing in her assailant’s case. According to Doe, they focused more attention on her line of work as an exotic dancer than the defendant’s conduct in assaulting her.
Although WJI generally does not give legal advice or represent individual clients, litigants upset by particular judges or procedures do reach out. Doe contacted WJI to report how she was treated by the court and prosecutor and to ask whether their comments violated any rules of professional conduct.
WJI attempted to confirm the statements attributed to Stella and Tingstad by reviewing the court recording or transcript before considering whether to publish anything about the hearing. But the court was quick to deny WJI access.
WJI reviewed the criminal complaint, which says the defendant, Brandon Frazer, inappropriately touched Doe during a private dance and orally penetrated her vagina. According to the complaint, Frazer confessed, admitting that “he stuck his tongue out and licked VICTIM.” It also says security cameras recorded the incident and officers reviewed and preserved the footage. Frazer was identified through ATM records subpoenaed from the strip club.
Court records confirm that Frazer pleaded no contest to third-degree sexual assault—a felony—in exchange for a one-year deferred sentence at the hearing.
The court ordered Frazer to pay a fine, commit no new crimes during the deferment period, avoid Iron County, and notify the DA of any change in address within five days. If Frazer successfully completes the requirements, after one year his conviction will be reduced to misdemeanor disorderly conduct.
Doe told WJI she was “blindsided by the light sentence” and the opportunity for the sexual assault crime to be reduced to a nonsexual misdemeanor, without treatment or other conditions from the court.
Doe told WJI that she lodged her dissatisfaction with the court and the DA directly and through her victim impact statement. According to Doe, the light sentence was imposed because the judge and DA felt the case was mitigated by the nature of Doe’s work.
At sentencing, Stella allegedly said that “hypervigilance might be the appropriate state of mind” for Doe in her line of work, the nature of Frazer’s crime was “different” than other sexual assault offenses, and a felony would “lump” Frazer in with other sexual assailants.
The hypervigilance comment was reported by a Michigan news outlet that had a reporter present for the hearing. The reporter was unwilling to speak to WJI for this story.
According to Doe, Tingstad made additional comments to her before the hearing about a jury’s unwillingness to take her case seriously.
Doe told WJI that Stella said on the record he would not want his family members in her line of work.
To verify Doe’s assertions, WJI sent an open records request to Stella and the Iron County Circuit Court court reporter seeking the hearing’s digital audio recording. Recordings from a court’s digital audio recording—DAR—system are supposed to be available to the public upon payment of $10, after the court redacts any confidential or attorney-client discussions.
Nevertheless, the court clerk denied WJI’s request for the reasons given in an attached policy of Stella that says “(i)t is the policy of the Iron County Circuit Court to deny the general public access to DAR recordings.” In the policy, Stella says that “only parties to a case who have a right to a transcript have the right to obtain copies of these recordings.”
“Anyone who wishes to do so may attend a public hearing and see and hear first-hand what is taking place,” his policy states.
Around the same time that WJI asked for a copy of the DAR recording, Jean Bock, the Iron County Circuit Court court reporter, told Doe in an email (provided to WJI), “After review of Supreme Court Rules and speaking with the Judge, only parties can request transcripts in cases.”
As a victim, Doe is not a party to the criminal case. Her status as a victim has not mattered regarding the transcript, notwithstanding the Marsy’s Law constitutional amendment, which was supposed to raise a victim’s rights to a level commensurate with a defendant’s rights.
Iron County Circuit Court is limiting access to transcripts and DAR recordings to only the parties in a case. In doing so, Stella is blocking the public’s ability to confirm what he says at hearings.
Stella says in his policy that his position is based on his interpretation of Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules regarding transcripts and that those rules, not public records statutes, govern access to transcripts. Such a reading would result in an exception to an otherwise valid open records request under public records statutes. WJI could locate no such exception to open records law in statute, the Supreme Court rules, or case law.
Regarding transcripts, Supreme Court Rule (SCR) 71.04 provides that the verbatim record of a hearing “need not be transcribed unless required by this rule, any statute or court order,” the court reporter generally must prepare a transcript for a party, and “(e)xcept when requested by a party or by a guardian ad litem appointed in the proceedings, the verbatim record of a proceeding under ch. 48, 767 or 938, stats., shall be transcribed only upon order of the court.” (Emphasis added by WJI.)
The chapters of law referenced in the above quote concern juveniles, family proceedings, or when a person is appointed to represent someone who cannot advocate for themselves (mainly children, but also the very elderly and those with mental health issues).
Many states, Wisconsin included, have statutes that protect access to juvenile records, ensuring that sensitive information is not disclosed to unauthorized people. It makes sense that the Wisconsin Supreme Court would limit access to a transcript in a proceeding involving one or that was otherwise confidential.
According to Stella’s written policy, SCR 71.04 means that “a court reporter is only required to make transcripts for parties to a proceeding, and that under no circumstances should a transcript be made for someone who is not a party or GAL in cases under Chapters 48, 767 or 938 without court approval.”
Notably, Doe and Frazer are not juveniles, nor is any other person involved in the case.
Stella’s stance denying hearing transcripts and audio recordings to nonparties seems unique to Iron County. WJI spoke with court reporters in Waukesha and Milwaukee circuit courts. They confirmed there is no restriction in their courts on nonparties obtaining transcripts or requesting digital audio recordings.
Multiple jurisdictions, including Ozaukee County use a form that has no “party to the case” requirement. In Portage County, while a transcript request from the public costs more to produce, there’s also no mandate that the requester be party to a case.
DAR records are not official records of proceedings for purposes of appeal, but are nevertheless records held by the court. The Supreme Court’s rules on DAR recordings are brief and instruct the Director of State Courts to “develop policies for copying and charging a fee for an audio recording.”
The Supreme Court’s guiding principles on DAR recordings (adopted in March 2023) say: “Duplicates of the electronic record may be purchased by parties to whom a transcript would be available with the approval of the court official. Care should be taken with confidential proceedings, as only certain parties are entitled to a recording or transcript without approval of the court official.”
The use of the word “parties” in these principles appears broader than litigants alone, as the principles thereafter state: “(I)f a member of the public wishes to purchase a copy of the digital audio recording in a matter that a transcript would be available to them, they may do so.” The court reporter is to allow the judge to review and redact privileged conversations but then provide the DAR recording to the requester unless the hearing falls under other rules for confidentiality.
According to experts contacted by WJI and a court reporter who has been practicing in Wisconsin for more than 20 years, DAR recordings are subject to judicial review to filter protected information like attorney-client privileged conversations, which the recordings sometimes pick up. As reported to the Wisconsin Judicial Council by various sources, the availability of DAR recordings to the public has caused judges hours of extra work to make sure confidential or privileged statements are redacted before release.
The Director of State Courts Office convened a committee to study what might be done. In March and May 2026, Director of State Courts Audrey Skwierawski and committee member Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz (Racine County Circuit Court) presented the Wisconsin Judicial Council with a proposed rule revision regarding public access to DAR recordings.
The proposal confirms that the current rules permit the release of both transcripts and DAR recordings to the public. The possible rule change would limit disclosure of a DAR recording primarily to parties for use in the litigation, the Office of Lawyer Regulation, and the Judicial Commission. Anyone else would have to file a motion in the underlying proceeding, with the burden of showing why a transcript cannot be obtained.
Such a rule change would not be required if the current rules already prohibit nonparties from obtaining transcripts and recordings, as Stella asserts.
Gasiorkiewicz told WJI by email that DAR committee’s “unanimous opinion is that (at present) DAR recordings are public records under Wisconsin law and anyone (without giving a reason) can obtain a digital download recording (usually a CD) after the sitting judge reviews and if appropriate redacts the content.”
Wisconsin public records law states that “(e)xcept as otherwise provided by law, any requester has a right to receive from an authority having custody of a record which is in the form of a comprehensible audio recording a copy of the recording substantially as audible as the original. The authority may instead provide a transcript of the recording to the requester if he or she requests.”
As declared in Wisconsin’s public records law, the public policy of this state is “that all persons are entitled to the greatest possible information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those officers and employees who represent them.” The law is to be construed with a presumption of complete public access, and access should be denied only in an exceptional case.
Blanket prohibitions on nondisclosure are generally prohibited by state law. Requests for records should be considered on a case-by-case basis.
WJI has complained to Stella’s supervisory judge, Tenth Judicial District Chief Judge John P. Anderson, about Stella’s blanket policy and asked Anderson to direct the Iron County Circuit Court to provide the DAR recording to WJI and the transcript to the victim.