RICHLAND CO.—One of Richland County’s more problematic inmates has emerged with yet another gripe with the system in which he’s incarcerated.
Burtis Wenzel, who remains locked up in Richland County due to endless motions, fitness hearings and an ongoing appeal in his 2009 Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault case instead of sitting in DOC where he belongs, is creating more cases for Richland County court, by now griping because he apparently doesn’t understand the intricacies of a 2002 county ordinance that makes him pay a co-pay for medical treatment while he’s incarcerated.
And since his interminable appeals are still dragging on, this looks to be just another expense that the young felon is creating for Richland as opposed to some grand-slam civil rights situation, which he appears to be leaning toward as his reason for the apparently-frivolous filings.
Wenzel Weed boy
Burtis D. Wenzel, 28, formerly of Clay County, is the son of “Wenzel Weed” originator Burtis E. Wenzel, who died a few years back.
The elder Wenzel became known for “Wenzel Weed” in Hardin County, a county that has rich volcanic soil in places and which, so goes the legend, the elder Wenzel developed such a potent strain of cannabis in that he became well-noted for it in Hardin, Pope, Gallatin and Saline counties in the southern portion of the readership area.
His kid attempted to take up the torch in Richland County, apparently, coming under felony charges in May of 2008 of Cannabis Production, to which he pled guilty to an amended misdemeanor version in October of that year and accepted a sentence of one year of Conditional Discharge.
However, in the interim, specifically June 15, 2008, Wenzel had gotten charged with Burglary, and was sent to prison on that count, this on October 2, 2008, for a very short (3-year, meaning only a matter of months in actuality) sentence.
Procreation…then creating a mess
Also in the interim, specifically March 1, 2008, Wenzel, at age 21, had had sex with a 12-year-old girl and had procreated with her. She gave birth to a little girl in 2009.
Richland’s prosecutor, David Hyde, waited until Wenzel was out from his Burglary prison sentence to arrest Wenzel on the sex charge, in an apparent effort to save money on housing costs for the young crim.
There would have been no way he could have foreseen that Wenzel was going to run the county into thousands of dollars, not only with a screwed-up jury trial on the sex charge, but on incidentals that arose over the next several years as Wenzel appealed his conviction and sentence in the sex case.
The sex charge wasn’t filed until April of 2009.
Wenzel was found guilty in a late January 2010 jury trial of Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault, a Class X felony, and sentenced to 16 years DOC.
However, endless appeals have kept him in Richland County Detention Center over the past several years.
This has set up a situation that creates more problems than the locals should have to contend with.
Served OP in jail
The first came about last year, when Wenzel was the subject of an Order of Protection filed by his victim.
As it turned out, he was sending letters to his then-four-year-old daughter through others.
That ended up being determined as “third-party contact” with his victim, with whom there was already an existing no-contact order which was apparently not being enforced, and the OP ended with a plenary (two-year) order being issued April 16.
Then at the end of March of this year, Wenzel, still awaiting a motion hearing after multiple fitness reviews in the sex case, filed a Miscellaneous Remedy through his attorney Rob Roth.
In this MR case, Wenzel is effectively whining about his commissary money at the county jail being taken away from him in order to pay co-payments on undescribed medical treatment.
Griping about inmate support
Wenzel petitions the court in the MR, stating that he’s been incarcerated at Richland County since May 1, 2009, is indigent, and has no money or resources of his own.
He states that Andy Hires, as Sheriff of Richland County, is required under Illinois’ County Jail Act to provide Wenzel’s medical services (along with other necessities such as bedding, clothing, and, oddly, fuel) as a prisoner of the county.
Wenzel says that the Act requires that “to the extent that such inmate is reasonably able to pay for such care, including reimbursement from any insurance program or from other medical benefit program available to such person,” the inmate shall “reimburse the county or other arresting authority.”
Wenzel then points out that another Section of the Act requires a sheriff, as warden of the jail, to “establish by regulation criteria for a reasonable deduction for money credited to any account of any inmate to defray costs to the county for an inmate’s medical care.”
And in the next paragraph, he claims that Hires “has not established, by regulation, criteria or procedure by which money may be taken from (Wenzel’s) commissary account or any other account for reimbursement for any medical expenses and services required for (Wenzel) while in custody or in the alternative, that the regulation criteria is unreasonable because (Wenzel) is indigent and without his own resources.”
Miffed about commissary funds
Wenzel then gets to the crux of his gripe:
That Hires has “taken $145 from (Wenzel’s) commissary account under the supposed authority of collecting for costs for medical care required for (Wenzel) while in custody at the jail in Olney.”
Wenzel claims that the taking of commissary funds from his account “under the supposed authority of collecting for costs for medical care required for (him) while in custody” was done without his consent, nor without a Due Process hearing.
Wenzel also claims in the documents that he had made “repeated attempts” to resolve the “controversy” with the sheriff and with the state’s attorney, David Hyde, but that Hires “persists in taking” Wenzel’s money.
Then, directly contradicting a previously-made statement regarding his assertion that there existed no “regulation criteria” for Hires taking the commissary money, Wenzel claims that “any regulation criteria is unreasonable when it does not consider that (Wenzel) is indigent.”
“Any taking of money from the commissary account that was established in (Wenzel’s) name and funded by other persons from their own monies is unreasonable and is unlawful taking of funds.”
‘Many hundreds’ = 23
Rattling off something about the fact that there are “many hundreds” of “indigent detainees” in Richland County (jail stats had it that there were about two dozen incarcerated as of press time, June 14, 2015), Wenzel ended his petition asking that a judge make a declaratory judgment against Hires, “requiring him to follow the law.”
The petition was entered March 24, 2015.
The problem with it was, Hires IS following the law.
In an April 22 answer to the petition, Hires submitted the very ordinance the county adopted in 2002—years before Hires was even sheriff, or for that matter, before Hyde was even state’s attorney—that adopted Illinois Compiled Statute 55 ILCS 5/4-5001 from 1992, which allows the county to “set and collect a reimbursement” from county detainees. This outlines exactly how the county can take a portion (co-pay) from each detainee in order to cover medical expenses incurred while the detainee is incarcerated, should the need arise for any medical treatment.
He’s costing the taxpayers how much??
Then Hires submitted the income as well as outflow from Wenzel’s incarceration time (May 1, 2009 to March 31, 2015).
Wenzel’s total commissary income amounted to $841.35 in those six years.
He was sent to DOC for awhile on February 19, 2010, and there was an amount of $29.52 released to him when he was transported.
The amount he actually spent on commissary items (snacks, cigarettes, other sundries provided to detainees at a cost) in that time frame amounted to $685.13.
The amount spent on medical co-pays for treatment of whatever was the latest ailment Wenzel was experiencing was only $126.70.
This chart also showed a current debt to the commissary of $24.75, indicating that if anyone else sent funds to Wenzel, the first place they’d go would be to bring his account up to balance.
The most interesting part of this balance sheet, however, was the “amount paid out for medical treatment by Richland County.”
The amount the county taxpayers had already funded for treatment of whatever Wenzel’s ailments were over the past six years was $4,891.34.
Given the deplorable state of “health care” in this country, and the way the government is forcing people to have some kind of coverage (be it at the taxpayers’ expense or being taken from them by force through Obamacare), Wenzel should consider himself fortunate that he even has the option of having any kind of care at all.
Hires even went as far as to provide for the court, in response to Wenzel’s petition, what the Richland County Detention Center has as policies and procedures for Inmate Medical Complaints/Treatments…just so everyone is clear.
Of course, due to privacy laws, it’s not stated in the filing just what Wenzel’s particular health complaints over six years actually were.
Nevertheless, they’ve been treated—per law—and they’ve been handled appropriately as regards the financing…again, per law.
Which hasn’t, apparently, been good enough for Wenzel.
Wenzel is next in court on a motion hearing in the sex charge June 23.
There has been no next court date set for the miscellaneous remedy case.