Hi folks,

Kirk Bangstad here, owner of the Minocqua Brewing Company, and I jumped on a live broadcast with Pattie Vasquez right after I had a hearing in Oneida County in which I plead guilty to a disorderly conduct charge in order to avoid a lengthy jury trial on a separate charge that could have landed me in jail—bail jumping.

I’d encourage everyone to listen to the half hour conversation, in which I tell the entire story of why I was charged with disorderly conduct in the first place—but if you don’t have the time, I’ve included the most important clips.

The focus of today’s “Office Hours” was to talk about the stress of filing taxes, and that any sort of relief that some families got from Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”—like $1000 funds for young children or tax breaks on tips for folks in the service industry—were quickly erased due to rampant inflation caused by Trump’s tariffs and the insane Iran war that’s driving gas prices up. Here’s Patti explaining why all these “tax savings” touted by Trump were a scam:

We pivoted from taxes to another practice that is uniquely used in Wisconsin that really hurts the working class—the egregious use of bail jumping charges to pressure defendants to plead guilty in order to move them more quickly through the criminal justice system and avoid lengthy jury trials.

Wisconsin is one of only seven states that allow prosecutors to file additional charges if people violate a wide range of pretrial release conditions while a case is pending in court.

From this article in Wisconsin Watch:

“Defense attorneys say bail jumping charges give prosecutors more leverage to pressure a defendant to plead guilty since the new charges can come with more jail or prison time than the original charges. Under state law, each felony bail jumping conviction may result in up to six years in prison.”

And bail jumping charges have gone through the roof in Wisconsin. From the same article:

“From 2020 to 2024, Wisconsin prosecutors filed nearly 250,000 bail jumping charges, according to state court system figures. During the same period, Minnesota’s court system reported prosecutors filing 336 charges for failure to appear and 636 charges for willfully disobeying a court mandate, the only potential charges for violating bail conditions in that state.”

I bring this up because I’ve just lived it. Here’s a clip of me telling my story of why I chose to plead guilty to a disorderly conduct charge stemming from a political speech I gave at my beer garden last summer.

While I’m lucky enough to be able to afford a lawyer that helped me navigate away from a bail jumping conviction, too many folks in the working class can’t afford lawyers and as a result, rack up bail jumping convictions that lead to jail time while waiting years for their actual cases to get heard. This results in being perpetually stuck in the criminal justice system, unable to get a good job as a result, and being driven into poverty or committing more crimes to survive.

Wisconsin is unique in its ability to screw up people’s lives with this insidious bail jumping statute, and the only way we can fix this problem is for Democrats to take back the majority in Wisconsin’s state legislature next November.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for sticking with the Minocqua Brewing Company.

Together, we must take bold steps to stop punishing the working class in Wisconsin, including fixing this crazy bail-jumping problem—one beer at a time.

Kirk Bangstad

Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company/ Minocqua Marketplace Publisher, Minocqua Brewing Company Times Founder, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC

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