Woman guilty of drug crimes, avoids torture charges

A woman who was free on bail in connection with charges she was running a drug house in a quiet Port Washington neighborhood across from St. Mary’s Catholic Church when authorities searched her house in March and found it strewn with drug paraphernalia was convicted by an Ozaukee County jury Tuesday of four felonies. 

The jury needed just more than two hours to find 58-year-old Sandra J. Koziol guilty of possessing heroin and methamphetamine, as well as two counts of bail jumping.

The verdict ended the one-day trial during which officers testified they found syringes and drug pipes, as well as scales and baggies used to sell drugs, throughout Koziol’s house when they searched it on March 16. Also found in the house were small amounts of heroin and methamphetamine, as well as a grocery bag stuffed with $4,130 in small bills, officers said. 

The search and Koziol’s arrest came just a month after she posted bail and was released from jail in a case that charges her with maintaining a drug trafficking place, which has yet to be resolved.

But what jurors did not hear Tuesday were details about why officers searched her house on March 16 and the most stunning allegations against Koziol — that, according to a criminal complaint, she interrogated a man she suspected of snitching on her while two accomplices tortured him in her living room.

The jury was not told about those allegations because just before the trial began, Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol asked that the charges against Koziol related to the alleged torture — intimidation of a witness, false imprisonment and misdemeanor battery — be dismissed because the victim and key witness has disappeared.

“He’s just gone,” Gerol told Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Steve Cain. “I’ve had the sheriff’s department and the Port P.D. search for him, and he’s in the wind.”

Because those charges were dismissed, Gerol and his witnesses went to lengths to be vague about why authorities were called to Koziol’s house, telling the jury it was for a “citizen assist,” and about the crime scene, which outside of the presence of the jury was characterized as fairly gory.

According to the criminal complaint, however, police were called to Koziol’s neighborhood early on March 16 after the man escaped Koziol’s house wearing only pants and one boot and ran to a nearby assisted living facility for help.

Police officers who responded said he was bleeding and bruised and had clearly been beaten, the complaint states.

At Koziol’s house, officers found an ice pick and a significant amount of blood near an outside door. Inside, they found a bloody chair and blood spatter and a bloody handprint on the wall, according to the complaint.

The man told authorities at the time that two men he did not know beat and burned him while Koziol asked him about what he told police about drug dealing at her house, the complaint states. According to other court documents, the man was not the person who tipped authorities off to suspected drug dealing at Koziol’s home.

Lt. Kurt Knowski of the Port Washington Police Department did testify Tuesday that after arresting Koziol on March 16 he noticed she had dried blood on her hands.

The jury heard no mention of the torture allegations until Koziol, the only defense witness, took the stand and, despite the objections of Gerol, told the jury she has been in jail for five months awaiting trial.

That gave Gerol grounds to ask Koziol why she was being held in jail in lieu of $50,000 bail. When she mentioned only the drug charges, Gerol pressed harder, asking her isn’t it also because “you in consort with two other individuals tortured” the man?

Sobbing, Koziol yelled at Gerol that he was not allowed to ask her about that. The judge intervened, telling her, “Ms. Koziol, the door has been opened” to those details, before excusing the jury for a break during which he admonished Koziol.

As jurors left the courtroom, Koziol, who was wearing a sleeveless dress, showed them the underside of her forearms to prove  she didn’t have track marks — scars from intravenous drug use — saying, “You can see I don’t do drugs like that.”

Ultimately, the case hinged not on whether there were drugs and drug paraphernalia in Koziol’s house — facts established by photographic and forensic evidence — but who they belonged to. 

Koziol, a home builder who owns Sandstone Homes Corp., testified that she left her house at 9 or 10 a.m. on March 15 and returned at about 1 a.m. March 16 to find her longtime friend and heroin addict  — the same man she was accused of torturing — on the floor of her house.

“(He) was lying on the floor in the dinette and I thought he was dead,” she said. “I thought he overdosed. There were syringes on the floor. I yelled his name and I asked him if he wanted me to use the Narcan,” a drug that counteracts the effect of opioids.

Koziol said the man woke up but was too high to tell her what had happened at her house. 

She testified that the heroin found in her living room and the methamphetamine in her bedroom probably belonged to the man, as did the drug paraphernalia found in her bedroom and adjoining closet and bathroom and the scales and drug pipes in her office. 

“He brought a suitcase full of drugs to her house,” Koziol’s lawyer, Perry Lieuallen, told the jury during his opening statement. “He was probably shooting up all day long.”

Koziol also testified that other people were at her house while she was away, and after she came home and went to bed she woke up to see two unknown men running from her house. She said she went downstairs and found her friend outside wearing only pants and one boot.

When questioned by Gerol, Koziol explained the plastic grocery bag of cash found by authorities in her house by saying that her mother recently sold property and instructed her to withdraw $4,000 of the proceeds from the bank and distribute it to her and her siblings. But pointing out the $4,130 was comprised of $5s, $10s and $20s, Gerol asked, “Isn’t this the proceeds of drug activity?”

What is certain, Gerol told the jury, is that the drugs and drug paraphernalia found in Koziol’s house on March 16 were brought there after her initial arrest on Feb. 2, when authorities searched the home and removed all contraband.

At 6 a.m. on that day, the Ozaukee County Special Response Team set off a stun grenade outside the house, then entered the home to find Koziol’s son, Blaine G. Koziol, 24, and his girlfriend in the basement, where he said they lived.

Sandra Koziol was not home at the time but in her upstairs bedroom, authorities found a glass pipe and bong, methamphetamine residue on a mirror and bags commonly used to package drugs, according to the complaint.

In the basement, where Blaine Koziol lived, authorities found pipes, bongs, BHO wax, a digital scale with marijuana residue on it and a money counter, according to the complaint.

A safe found in a basement closet contained $7,706 in cash, 43.2 grams of marijuana and BHO wax.

An inspection of Blaine Koziol’s cell phone revealed multiple messages about drug deals, the complaint states.

Blaine Koziol, who has pleaded not guilty and is free in lieu of $5,000 bail, is charged with maintaining a drug trafficking place and possession with intent to deliver marijuana. Lieuallen, who also represents Blaine, said during a hearing Monday that he expected the case against him to be resolved later this year.

In addition to maintaining a drug trafficking place, Sandra Koziol is charged with possession of methamphetamine in that case and was free on bail until her arrest on March 16.

It’s unclear how that case against her will proceed, but she is scheduled to be sentenced for the crimes she was convicted of in the subsequent case on Sept. 22.