Milwaukee Cop Sentenced to Prison For Pulling Drivers Over & Searching Their "Anal & Scrotal Areas"

Vagnini regularly pulled over drivers on a pretense of not wearing a seatbelt or of having darkly tinted windows and searched them without a legal reason, according to prosecutors.

Vagnini conducted searches of men's anal and scrotal areas, often inserting his fingers into their rectums, according to the criminal complaint. Vagnini acknowledged performing one of the searches, and at least one suspect said Vagnini planted drugs on him.

State law and police procedures prohibit officers from conducting body cavity searches. Only medical personnel are allowed to perform them, and police must first obtain a search warrant.

The searches occurred on the street and in district stations over a period of two years.

[...]While prosecutors agreed to dismiss sexual assault counts as part of the plea deal, Assistant District Attorney Miriam Falk made clear Friday that she believes that offense occurred, repeatedly. She said while Vagnini may not have sought or obtained any sexual arousal or gratification from reaching into suspects' rectal areas, he knew the victims could not ignore that element.

"I know Michael Vagnini understood the sexual undertones of what was going on," Falk said. "It was intended to degrade and humiliate them, and that's what makes it a sexual assault."