Women dragged out of meeting found guilty

Two of the three women who were arrested, handcuffed and removed from the Dec. 3, 2025, Port Washington Common Council meeting during public comments about the Vantage Data Centers Lighthouse Campus were found guilty of disorderly conduct and fined $187 Tuesday by Mid-Moraine Municipal Court Judge Christine Ohlis.

In making her ruling, Ohlis said Christine Le Jeune and Julianne Wanderer did not obey the rules that had been announced several times and created a disturbance they are responsible for.

“Everybody has the right to voice their opinions. We also have to have orderly meetings,” Ohlis said.

The problem wasn’t the fact Le Jeune exceeded her allotted time for comments briefly or that she said “Recall” several times as she returned to her seat afterward, Ohlis said. It was that when then-Police Chief Kevin Hingiss asked her to leave the council chambers, she did not.

“She pulled away and things got physical. It tended to cause or provoke a disturbance,” Ohlis said. “She was asked to leave and she didn’t.”

Wanderer, she said, could be clearly seen in a video of the meeting yelling profanities and “per her own testimony hooked her arm” with Le Jeune’s to try and stop her from being removed from the room.

Le Jeune and Wanderer, who were both issued municipal disorderly conduct citations shortly after the incident, have 20 days to decide if they will appeal the decision, Ohlis said.

In a statement issued Tuesday night, Le Jeune said, “Members of the public should not be removed for speaking their minds, even when public officials disagree. We will keep pressing for open, accountable public meetings in Port Washington.”

Tuesday’s trial took about three hours, and in addition to testimony from witnesses included a showing of about 10 minutes of video from the Dec. 2 meeting.

The video showed the beginning of the meeting as City Attorney Matt Nugent instructed people not to interrupt one another and to be respectful or police could remove them, the end of Le Jeune’s speech and the beginning of comments that followed hers. Officers handcuffing and removing her happened primarily largely off screen, but people could be heard yelling at officers as they removed the women.

Other video taken by people in the audience and not shown at Tuesday’s hearing showed police pulling Le Jeune from her seat and through the aisle onto the floor, where she was handcuffed.

Dean Wiegert, who was sitting near Le Jeune at the meeting, testified that when officers removed her from her seat “they practically pulled me out of my chair.”

Le Jeune made her remarks regarding the data center campus, which were cut off after she reached the three-minute time limit, and as she returned to her seat she could be heard saying “recall” three times.

She testified that she did not notice Hingiss approach her, saying she was looking down and listening to the next speaker.

“He said, ‘You’re disturbing the meeting,’” she said. “All I remember saying is, ‘I’m sitting here, I’m not doing anything.’”

Police then removed her from her seat, Le Jeune said.

“It was very physical,” she said. 

Although Lt. JJ Mejchar and Hingiss both testified that she kicked at the chief, striking him once, she said she did not remember that.

“It was surreal,” she said. “I was really in shock. I did not want any of this to happen.”

She never intended to cause a disturbance, Le Jeune added.

“I definitely do not to this day believe I broke them (the rules),” she said.

Wanderer testified that she got involved to express her opposition to what she thought was an unlawful arrest.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she said. “I believe in free speech. Her rights were being violated. I lost my temper.”

But, she said, “the police officer created the disorder” and she cursed at officials because they were not stopping police.

She said she then hooked her arm around Le Jeune’s in an attempt to keep police from removing her, saying she felt justified because “I didn’t believe it was a lawful order. I was trying to prevent her from being injured.”

Hingiss testified that he asked Le Jeune to leave several times and she refused, after which he and other officers tried to remove her as she “actively and passively” resisted.

“The issue I had was the chanting (of “recall),” he said, adding he believed it was being used to get others riled up and disturb the meeting.

A number of people who were at the  meeting testified that speakers sometimes briefly exceeded their alloted three minute time limit and that the audience frequently applauded and cheered speakers without being removed from the room.

They said that the meeting was their chance to express opposition to the city’s decision to allow construction at the data center campus to continue around the clock, adding emotions were high.

In his closing statement, Le Jeune’s attorney, Dan Adams, said people came to the meeting to express their feelings and show their distrust of the city. 

“There was no disorder before the police chief created one himself,” Adams said. “Nobody got up and rushed the stage. The police chief took it upon himself not to give her a warning but to say, ‘You’re out.’”

However attorney Timothy Algiers, who prosecuted the case for the city, said people were warned that they were to be respectful and could be removed if they were not. 

He noted that Le Jeune had time during her three minutes to speak to the idea of recalling officials, adding that chanting “recall” afterward was a political statement aimed at riling the crowd.

“I can’t conceive of any other purpose,” he said.

Ohlis dismissed a disorderly conduct citation issued to Paula Butler, who Mejchar testified tried to physically prevent officers from removing Le Jeune.