HURT BY SCANDAL, WINNEBAGO COUNTY DA LOSES TO LENNON

Longtime Winnebago County District Attorney Joseph Paulus, tainted by a
scandal he said was politically motivated, was defeated by Waupaca County
Assistant District Attorney Bill Lennon in Tuesday's Republican primary
election.

Lennon now will face one of Paulus' assistants, Democrat Brad Priebe, in
the Nov. 5 general election to become the county's top prosecutor.

"Now we have to win over the people who supported (former Paulus assistant
Edmund) Jelinski and we have to win over the people who supported Paulus,"
Lennon said.

With 95 percent of the votes counted, Lennon polled just over 50 percent to
Paulus' 34 percent.

The third person in the race, Jelinski, who instigated accusations of
wrongdoing in office by Paulus, came in a distant third, polling 16 percent
of the vote.

"We set out to tell the truth and expose Joe Paulus, and I think we
achieved that," Jelinski said. "Even though I am not the nominee, come
tomorrow, Joe Paulus isn't, either."

Jelinski said he hadn't decided whom he will support in November.

Paulus, serving his seventh consecutive two-year term, could not be reached
for comment late Tuesday.

His seemingly invincible position as district attorney was damaged in May
when Jelinski went public with accusations that Paulus showed favoritism in
the dismissal of several drunken-driving charges.

The campaign then took on a darker tone when Jelinski released a series of
secretly tape-recorded conversations of Paulus. In one of the
conversations, Paulus bragged of a sexual encounter with a woman in his office.

Paulus denied the tryst happened and said his comments were just sexual
bravado among the boys.

Lennon had to overcome his admission of using cocaine and marijuana in his
college days.

"I think we stayed out of the mud and out of the nasty politics," Lennon
said. "This is a mandate from the voters of Winnebago County that they want
an aggressive, experienced prosecutor to come in and clean up that office.
The hard work is ahead of us, that is uniting the Republican Party and
bringing the independent Democrats on board."

Priebe said he is looking forward to facing Lennon.

"I liked my chances against all three of the candidates," he said.

And what will it be like working with Paulus for the next three months?

"I don't expect it to be any different than it has been," Priebe said. "For
me it will be business as usual. ... You have a job to do and you do it."