9 Waupun prison employees have been fired as feds investigate smuggling

Nine employees at Wisconsin’s Waupun prison have been fired following the launch of a federal investigation into contraband smuggling. 

In March, Wisconsin’s governor announced the Federal Bureau of Investigation had launched a probe into allegations that Waupun employees had been smuggling drugs and cell phones into the maximum security facility.   

At the time, Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections confirmed 11 Waupan employees had been placed on leave between May 2023 and March 2024.

Since then, nine of those employees have been fired and two have resigned, according to the state Department of Corrections.

A DOC spokesperson declined to release the names of most of those employees, citing ongoing investigations. 

In December, former Waupun maintenance worker William Homan was sentenced to nine months of house arrest and three years probation after pleading guilty to a federal conspiracy to commit bribery charge. In 2022 and 2023, Homan took more than $50,000 from inmates, former inmates and their associates in exchange for smuggling items like tobacco, cell phones and marijuana, according to federal court records.

Separately, a total of nine people are facing state-level felonies after Dodge County investigators concluded their neglect contributed to the deaths of two incarcerated men. One of those men died of dehydration and malnutrition after prosecutors say staff cut off water to his cell. The other died of a stroke after authorities say Waupun workers failed to complete required checks and ignored his signs of medical distress.

The people facing criminal charges over deaths at Waupun include Randy Hepp, Waupun’s former warden, who pleaded not guilty this summer to a charge of misconduct office.

Waupun is the state’s oldest prison, with parts of the facility in eastern-central Wisconsin dating back to before the Civil War.

More than 700 men are incarcerated there. For more than a year in 2023 and 2024, inmates there were under lockdown, during which normal movement and activities were restricted.

At the time, Waupun was plagued by severe short-staffing and prison officials citied safety concerns.

A sentencing memorandum for Homan also indicates that contraband smuggling at Waupun played a role in a “lack of institutional control,” which led officials to place Waupun under lockdown, known officially as modified movement.

“The presence of contraband in (Waupun Correctional Institution) contributed to this lack of institutional control,” a memo written by federal prosecutors said. “As part of its efforts to reestablish control, a facility-wide search was conducted, resulting in the recovery of numerous cellular phones, controlled substances, and other contraband. WCI provided information obtained from its investigation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which included information that WCI staff were receiving bribes in exchange for smuggling in contraband.”

When Waupun was placed under lockdown, about half of correctional positions at that facility were vacant, but staffing levels have improved since then.

The most recent Department of Corrections data shows nearly 19 percent of Waupun’s correctional officer and sergeant positions are vacant, which is slightly above the 14 percent average across Wisconsin’s adult prison system.