Trish Wonch Hill, a political activist & UNL employee, was found not guilty of vandalizing Sen. Deb Fischer’s #LNK office in 2018. In a bench trial, Judge Joseph E. Dalton said he believed Wonch Hill did it, but that the state failed to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
Wonch Hill said afterwards the Lancaster Co Attny was pressured into prosecuting the political speech of a private citizen by Republican politicians, wasting taxpayer time and resources in the process.
The prosecution relied upon statements from an employee in Fischer’s office and a fingerprint analyst with LPD. The analyst said 5 latent prints pulled from Betsy Riot stickers and a sign taped to the office door matched samples provided by Wonch Hill.
The same analyst conceded, however, that the prints didn’t prove it was Wonch Hill “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Wonch Hill said she is filing an ethics complaint against Rep. Jeff Fortenberry for pressuring LPD to do the investigation.
And quick correction: the City of Lincoln filed charges against Wonch Hill, not the county attorney.
City Attorney Jeff Kirkpatrick said prosecutors felt they had the evidence for a conviction and going to court was a proper use of taxpayer resources.
"At some point, if everybody says it's not a big deal, then it has an impact on the quality of life in the city," he told me.
Kirkpatrick said the city attorney's office was not politically pressured to pursue the case. "You can argue some of this is political speech. We felt this was covered under city ordinance, and the evidence was strong enough to convict."
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