Former Wisconsin Warden Gets No Cell Time, $500 Fine After Prisoner Deaths
Former Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) Warden Randall Hepp took a deal before his sentencing on April 28, 2025, accepting a $500 fine in exchange for his no-contest plea to a misdemeanor charge of violating state and county institution laws. The deal allowed the now-retired prison official to avoid any time behind bars.
As PLN reported, Hepp was originally charged with felony misconduct in office in June 2024, when eight subordinates at Waupun Correctional Institution were charged in the deaths of prisoners Cameron Williams, 24, in October 2023 and Donald W. Maier, 62, in February 2024; one of those, former guard Sarah Ransbottom, 36, also cut a deal to avoid cell time and pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor misconduct charge in September 2024, when she was ordered to pay a $250 fine. [See: PLN, July 2024, p.36; and Dec. 2024, p.62.]
Charges against another former guard, Sgt. Jeramie Heyward Chalker, 41, were dismissed on April 1, 2025, after Dodge County District Attorney Andrea Will agreed that he was simply “following [the] chain of command” when he falsely filled out logs indicating that he completed rounds inspecting Maier’s cell—which the guard never actually conducted.
Criminal cases continue against the remaining six staffers, and PLN will update developments as they occur. Also still pending are three civil suits filed over the deaths of Williams and two other prisoners who died at the lockup in 2023, Dean Hoffman, 60, and Tyshun Lemons, 30. See: Anderson v. Wisc. Dep’t of Corr., USDC (E.D. Wisc.), Case No. 2:24-cv-00563; Lemons v. Wisc. Dep’t of Corr., USDC (E.D. Wisc.), Case No. 2:24-cv-00703; and Est. of Hoffmann v. Wisc. Dep’t of Corr., USDC (E.D. Wisc.), Case No. 2:24-cv-00160.
Additional sources: Appleton Post-Crescent, KOB, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Washington Post
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