Elderly victim of Kapanke's wife upset over handling of her case

UPDATE: Ruth Kapanke was sentenced to 14 days in jail on work/treatment release , with a second charge suspended and to be dismissed after 18 months if she stays drug- and alcohol-free. Story.

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Ruth Kapanke, wife of State Sen. Dan Kapanke, R-LaCrosse, is to appear in court for a plea hearing this afternoon, on charges she stole prescription painkillers from an elderly woman she befriended. She apparently has negotiated a plea bargain that will end the case.

Ruth Kapanke reportedly will plead guilty to a single count of theft, although she has confessed to stealing drugs from the homes of a dozen patients in the LaCrosse area, according to documents obtained from the sheriff's department in an open records request.

One of the victims, Donna Tischer, is quite upset -- to say the least -- at how the case has been handled by the LaCrosse DA, Scott Horne, and the Trempealeau DA, Jeri Marsolek. Horne, a Republican, asked Marsolek, a Democrat, to act as special prosecutor because, Horne said, he was a friend of the Kapankes and had worked in Dan Kapanke's campaigns, the LaCrosse Tribune reported. (Tischer notes that Horne did not recuse himself from handling a complaint against Kapanke's opponent during the last campaign, however.)

Ruth Kapanke, 58, is a nurse. She was arrested in June by the sheriff's office and charged with possession of a prescription drug without a prescription and theft. Ruth Kapanke is co-owner, with her husband, of the La Crosse Loggers baseball team.

Horne said the Kapankes cooperated fully with investigators, and asked for no special favors, the LaCrosse Tribune reported at the time of the arrest.

But Tischer, 75, in a statement to be given to the media at the sentencing hearing, says, in part:

I wish to express my frustration and dismay towards the whole process involving this case. Ruth Kapanke has admitted to stealing and preying upon 10 other victims, but due to the lack of an investigation by either the La Crosse County District Attorney or the Trempealeau County District Attorney, neither the public nor I will ever know how many other victims there were or what the facts surrounding the other known 10 victims.

Other than the initial complaint, I was never interviewed by either prosecutor. I had to make my own inquiries into this case (by doing an open records request) only to find out that none of the other victims had been contacted or interviewed. In filing the open records request I learned that Mrs. Kapanke burglarized a senior citizen's home to steal medication. She actually broke into someone’s home to commit a crime. If these acts were committed by someone else, someone of a different color or economic background, would we have seen this investigation handled differently? I guess it helps to have a husband that is a state Senator and a close friend of the local District Attorney.

Ruth Kapanke preyed on 11 senior citizens that we know of, and terrorized me in my own home. She knew I was recently widowed, handicapped and living on a fixed income. She knew that I had problems with my heart and kidneys, and that I suffer from debilitating arthritis. I am also required to take Procrid shots for my blood.

As a registered nurse, Ruth Kapanke took an oath to care for the sick and disabled. She however, chose to prey upon and abuse elderly people some of which of which she was charged with helping.

I have been so shaken by this experience that I have had to install a peephole in my door and a motion sensor light on my home. I have been unable to sleep at night, only adding to the stress of my weakened heart. I have had to endure harassment in the form of phone calls and one night someone pounding on my door after I had gone to bed.

I am the one that filed charges against Mrs. Kapanke. When I first brought these issues to the La Crosse County District Attorney he encouraged/harassed me to “work things out” with the Kapankes. I would later find out that La Crosse County District Attorney Scott Horne was a close personal friend of the Kapankes and was actively involved in Senator Kapanke’s election campaign. On a side note, this is the same DA, that failed to recuse himself when he was investigating then-candidate Kapanke’s opponent for election law issues.

As much as Ruth Kapanke has done, I give no pardon to the officials handling this case. In an effort to protect a political friend, officials have failed to answer some of the basic questions surrounding this case. It was the political friends of the Kapankes that [delayed the arrest of] Mrs. Kapanke (even after they had a video tape of her stealing drugs from my house) so as to not interfere with the home opener of the Loggers baseball game. In fact, had they arrested Mrs. Kapanke before the baseball game then they would have prevented her from stealing from another elderly person (she stole the very next day).

I think the people in our community deserve to know the answers to questions not asked by the prosecutors in this case. This may be socially a problem for Mrs. Kapanke and politically embarrassing for Senator Kapanke, but that is nothing compared to the fear, harassment and furthered health problems that others and I have had to endure as a victim Mrs. Kapanke. . .

For all the anger I feel at this time, I feel a greater sadness for Ruth. I hope and pray that she is treated for her problems and the pain she has caused.

Sheriff's department records support the facts as Tischer relates them, although there may have been 12 victims in all. Mrs. Kapanke provided a list of 10 other victims from whom she had stolen drugs, and confessed to taking Hydrocodone from Tischer's home on multiple occasions and to taking Oxycontin from another 89-year-old woman's home.

Sheriff's Capt. Jeffrey Wolf, who made the arrest of Ruth Kapanke, also confirms that he delayed calling her in for an interview for a day, in part because of his schedule but also because he "did not want to have a conflict with the fact that she may be busy with her duties related to the opening night of baseball."

Instead, he called Ruth Kapanke at 8:30 a.m. on June 2, told her he was investigating a theft of drugs from Tischer, and asked her to come to the sheriff's department for an interview. She agreed to do so at 11 a.m., but -- according to a later statement from Ruth Kapanke -- in the meantime she went to the home of another elderly woman, Norma Anderson, and stole Hydrocodone.

It is not clear who made the decision on which charges to file, or who decided not to interview the other victims. The plea bargain undoubtedly was negotiated by the Trempealeau DA. If Ruth Kapanke has been in a treatment program for addiction since her arrest in June, that would be a mitigating factor.