Gov. Hickenlooper appoints Wisconsin prison official to top DOC post

Rick Raemisch wanted to come to Colorado because his predecessor, Tom Clements, was gunned down at his front door by a parolee, not in spite of that fact.

“The horrific death of Tom Clements kind of drove me to seek the position,” Raemisch said in a phone interview Friday, hours after Gov. John Hickenlooper announced Raemisch’s appointment as executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections.

“I was outraged that that could happen to someone who held the same position I once did,” he said. “It made me feel an obligation to do something about it.”

Raemisch said he knows that revelations linked to the Clements’ murder have put a spotlight on deficient DOC operations, including within the parole department, but he is ready to work with his new staff to resolve those issues.

“Of course it isn’t OK to wait six days to seek an arrest warrant after an inmate cuts his ankle bracelet,” said Raemisch, referring to the time it took for a Colorado parole officer to seek a warrant against Evan Ebel after the parolee absconded. “There are obviously problems, but I want to come in with an open mind.”

Investigators believe the white supremacist prison gang member killed pizza delivery driver Nathan Leon on March 17 to steal his uniform as a disguise in the Clements murder two days later. Ebel was killed by Texas law enforcement officers during a car chase and shootout two days after Clements’ death.

Raemisch had his share of problems when he served four terms as the Dane County, Wis., sheriff in the 1990s and the chief of Wisconsin corrections department in recent years.

For example, in 2009, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation revealed that Wisconsin authorities, including his staff, had failed to collect DNA samples from 12,000 felons including a serial killer who murdered seven women.

“First, when we realized that a mistake was made, we acknowledged it. We didn’t try to hide it. Then we fixed it,” Raemisch said.

The problem amounted to a failure to implement a new state law requiring the DNA collections. Raemisch said procedures were then established to take thousands of DNA samples.

“Rick is a nationally recognized expert in corrections and has a very diverse background in criminal justice,” Hickenlooper said in a news release. “He has a great understanding of crime and the criminal mind from his work as a sheriff and prosecutor.”

He has the broad perspective of someone who has held many law enforcement jobs, said Mary Kay Sergo, a top member of Raemisch’s staff.

Raemisch’s career spans three decades as a deputy sheriff, prosecutor, elected sheriff and head of the Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections, where he was responsible for more than 22,000 prison inmates and more than 73,000 convicts on probation or parole.

For 7½ years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Raemisch was an undercover drug agent.

His undercover drug job prepared him after he earned a law degree when he was hired as a federal prosecutor focusing on trying drug dealers. Raemisch was a sheriff in Dane County for much of the 1990s, getting re-elected four times even though he was a Republican in the heavily Democratic county.

In 2003, he started his corrections career, working as a community corrections administrator supervising the oversight of 68,000 offenders on probation and parole, and then worked as deputy secretary. Raemisch was named secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections in 2007.

Since 2011, Raemisch has been the dean of the School of Human and Protective Services at Madison College in Madison, overseeing emergency medical services, criminal justice, fire, human service and early child care education programs.

“I consider myself a strong law and order individual, but I also believe that people can change,” Raemisch said. “More than 90 percent of all inmates return to where they came from. They will go back in one of two ways: They will either go back angry and likely re-offend; or they will go back prepared to re-enter the community and be law-abiding citizens.”

Raemisch will start work in July and have a chance to transition into the new role alongside interim executive director Roger Werholtz.

Nathan Woodliff-Stanley, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Colorado, praised Raemisch’s appointment.

“The governor’s announcement signals an intention to further former director Tom Clements’ goals of ensuring greater safety for the public, protecting civil liberties and preparing prisoners for successful re-entry into society,” Woodliff-Stanley said in a statement.

“We look forward to close collaboration with Mr. Raemisch to ensure that Clements’ impressive legacy is honored and unfinished goals are met,” he said.

Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, kmitchell@denverpost.com or twitter.com/kmitchelldp