Jessica Van Egeren
Charles Cross Jr. was hired by the department in 1993.
In 2012, he drove a car with a blood alcohol limit twice the legal limit into a home. At the time of the crash, he was also under investigation for allegedly claiming overtime he did not earn, according to previous reporting by the Journal Sentinel.
Cross was fired from his position as a Milwaukee Police Sergeant after the crash. He appealed the decision and resigned in the process.
Previously, he was convicted in 2007 of criminal damage to property, according to court records. This misdemeanor conviction came after he kicked in the door of the apartment he shared with his girlfriend and threatened to kill himself, the court records show. He was fined $500 on that count.
Prosecutors offered him a deferred prosecution agreement on a charge of domestic violence-related disorderly conduct, which was dropped after he got treatment for depression and alcohol abuse, according to a Journal Sentinel article.
Nannette Hegerty, police chief at the time, fired Cross, but the civilian Fire and Police Commission gave him his job back after the 2007 incident.
It was after that incident that he was placed on Milwaukee County's Brady list, a compilation of law enforcement officers deemed by prosecutors to have credibility issues.
Cross, 62, is back in the news for his current job with CoreCivic, which runs many of the immigration detention centers for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Cross signed a report that implicated Andry José Hernandez, a gay makeup artist from Venezuela, as affiliated with the notorious Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, based on his tattoos, according to court filings reviewed by USA TODAY. Cross typed his name over the title “INVESTIGATOR” on the form.
Critics have questioned the legality and effectiveness of having contract workers make such determinations.
Hernandez, 31, has denied any connection to the gang. He sought shelter in the United States after he told authorities he was persecuted as a gay man, one of the protected groups allowed to claim asylum.
Last month, Hernandez was flown with 238 men, all accused of being gang members by the Trump Administration, to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center, a mega-prison also known as CECOT. A 60 Minutes investigation found that 179 of the men, or 75% of the names on the list, had no known criminal record in the U.S. or abroad.
The operation has been challenged by civil rights attorneys, who argue it was carried out without due process.
Reached by phone by a USA TODAY reporter, Cross deferred all questions to CoreCivic headquarters. CoreCivic said in a statement that the decision to deport or release any person rests with ICE.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Ashley Luthern contributed to this report.
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