Keshena man gets 41 months for assault

A former Keshena man with a history of convictions for “brutal beatings” was sentenced June 16 in federal court to three years and five months in prison for an assault that left his victim in a coma for two days.

According to court documents: Mitchell R. Crowe, 40, was on supervised release June 25, 2020, for a sex crime involving a minor when a 50-plus-year-old man that Crowe knew, threatened Crowe and pointed what appeared to be firearm at him. The man struck Crowe in the face with the firearm and the 6-foot, 330-pound Crowe, according to Brown County Jail records, kicked or stomped on the man’s head, fracturing his skull and other lesser injuries. Surgery for the man’s fractured skull was delayed for two days while he was in a coma with a hemorrhaged brain.

The victim was identified in court documents as “John Doe” but referred to in court only as Mr. James.

Crowe was indicted in October, detained in February and pleaded guilty to assault on April 1. Also on that date, District Judge William Griesbach revoked Crowe’s supervised release on a 2018 conviction for sexual contact with a minor, and sentenced Crowe to a year in prison for that offense.

Arguing against enhancing Crowe’s sentence for using a knife during the assault, his attorney, Susan Karaskiewicz, said on Wednesday that her client was trying to defend himself.

“Mr. Crowe wasn’t looking for this fight, he didn’t randomly seek out to attack Mr. James and instead Mr. Crowe suffered a broken orbital bone,” an eye socket fracture, Karaskiewicz said.

Griesbach concluded that Crowe had a knife during the assault completely disagreed that he was merely defending himself.

“This isn’t a self-defense case otherwise Mr. Crowe wouldn’t be before the court. This is an assault…and I reject the argument that Mr. Crowe was defending himself. He was the aggressor and beat Mr. James far more than necessary… (Crowe) seems to have pulled (James) from a car, beaten Mr. James who doesn’t remember any of the events,” Griesbach said.

Both Karaskiewicz and Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Maier recommended that Griesbach impose a sentence of 41 months and three years’ supervised release.

Maier told Griesbach that the government hasn’t spoken to Mr. James in any meaningful way but Maier believes that Mr. James would be satisfied with length of the recommend sentence to run concurrently with the rest of the sentence Crowe is serving now.

Continuing to add mitigating information, Karaskiewicz said, that a missing witness, if he were honest, could corroborate what happened that day but he is a brother of the tribal police detective who led the investigation on the Menominee Indian Reservation. The missing witness had said that the fight was started by James using a slang term to call Crowe a child molester.

“There’s lot of missing information, that is one reason that Mr. James didn’t provide a statement or want to go further with this,” she said.

Crowe declined to make a statement.

Griesbach said the case against Crowe was difficult to prove because many potential witnesses were under the influence, fled or, don’t “have a history of perfect honesty.”

Griesbach recounted Crowe’s prior convictions for violent acts including beating a man to death in 2000 with a table leg, which resulted in a 57-month sentence; battery to a federal law enforcement officer in 2008 which resulted in a seven-year sentence; and abusive sexual contact with a minor in 2018.

“That’s an atrocious record,” the judge said.

The assault on James not only caused some “cognitive damage, you came close to killing him,” said Griesbach.

“I know you’re a better person than this. You’ve got to get control of your behavior, get control of your substance abuse. People are frightened of you,” the judge said.