UNDATED (WTAQ) – As a federal grand jury convened in Milwaukee on Tuesday about the investigation into troubled local car dealer Standard Pre-Owned, legislators are talking about details coming to light.
“Everything about the story just shocks me that it was allowed to go on,” says Wisconsin Rep. Andre Jacque (R-De Pere).
“Having this happen is just not acceptable, it should never have happened,” remarks Wisconsin Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay).
There is an ongoing state audit of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, but Wisconsin Sen. Robert Cowles (R-Allouez) says this aspect isn’t part of that audit.
“I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t embed this subject inside the big audit,” says Cowles. “It’s possible we could resolve it just with interviews and recommendations from management of DOT and the DMV division. I don’t know the answer to that yet.”
All three agreed that while there is no clear path forward to ensuring this kind of incident doesn’t happen again, they do have some solutions which could be brought up when the Legislature returns to the Capitol next year.
“In 2015, there were over 959,000 title transactions by third parties and the DMV is responsible for auditing these transactions,” Hansen says. “But only 1% of them were audited. There has to be something wrong with that, because that’s not nearly enough. They only spent in 2015 $51,000. So we may have to take a look at how dealer consignment sales work or don’t work, how these types of dealers are licensed or whether they should have more scrutiny.”
Jacque is in favor of at least a hearing to hold DOT officials’ feet to the fire.
“Just to sort out how this happened and how to keep that from happening again,” says Jacque. “I think we have to cast a wide net in terms of who we invite to that.”
GRAND JURY DECISION
Typically, the grand jury is made up of 23 jurors trying to decide whether there’s enough evidence for an indictment in a case. That’s what took place behind closed doors in Milwaukee on Tuesday.
FOX 11 reports that a decision on whether charges will be filed in the case of Standard Pre-Owned could come Wednesday.
Several of the key people involved in Bella Investment Group LLC, the parent company of Standard Pre-Owned, were believed to have testified at the grand jury hearing. However, it remains unclear who the target of the FBI investigation is.
CONSIGNOR COURT ACTION
Earlier this week, an Outagamie County court commissioner rejected a motion to dismiss several defendants from a small claims case against Standard Pre-Owned.
This case involves the Kaukauna location, which sold a car on consignment for Richard and Mason Sprague. The Sprague’s were never paid and still hold the title to that vehicle. In court Monday, several other consignors appeared for similar cases.
The lone defendant dismissed from the case by the court commissioner was Sheila Verhagen.
A trial date was scheduled for December 15 at 8:30 a.m. It’s expected to last all day.
