Sheboygan Mayor Ruined Her Business|In Vendetta, Web Developer Says

MILWAUKEE (CN) - A Web developer sued the mayor, police chief and city attorney of Sheboygan, claiming she lost half her income and received death threats and vulgar and obscene letters because they had police "investigate" her for placing a link to the Sheboygan Police Department on her business Web site. The woman says Mayor Juan Perez had a vendetta against her because she designed a Web site for a recall effort against him.

Jennifer Reisinger claims she lost 53% of her annual income, and received "death threats, other threats to her personal safety, including vulgar and obscene comments and letters left at her residence, causing her (to) fear for her own personal safety ... to the point that video cameras and a burglar alarm was installed at the Reisinger residence."

Reisinger claims Mayor Perez and his henchmen retaliated against her for her involvement in a recall campaign against Perez.

She claims that she placed a link to the Sheboygan Police Department on her own Web site, for Brat City Web Design. She says she supports the police, and she linked to their Web site because she used her business Web site to promote Sheboygan, and encourage people to visit its Web site, including that of the Chamber of Commerce.

Nonetheless, she says, Perez asked City Attorney Stephen McLean whether it was legal for her to post a link to the Police Department. McLean replied that it was perfectly legal. "However, City Attorney McLean indicated that, nonetheless, he could issue a 'cease and desist' letter to Ms. Reisinger, if the Mayor so desired," her complaint states.

She says she took down the link, though she informed the city attorney that his request was "very silly, very trite, and very, very wrong."

Subsequently, she says, she received calls from the Sheboygan Police, telling her they were conducting "an official police investigation relative to the linking of her Web site to the City of Sheboygan Police Department."

This so alarmed her she hired an attorney, she says, who contacted the city, which then withdrew its demand that she cease and desist from linking to a city Web site from her business Web site. As a result of the entire fiasco, she says, she received the death threats, obscene messages, and lost more than half her income. She demands $250,000 in damages, and punitive damages for constitutional violations. She is represented by Paul Bucher with Gatzke & Ruppelt of New Berlin, Wisc

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