Wife of Superior Police Chief Suing The City
SUPERIOR, Wis. – Mikayla Marie LeRette, the wife of Superior Police Chief Paul Winterscheidt, is suing the City of Superior and former Superior Police Capt. Thomas Champaigne.
Superior Police Chief Paul Winterscheidt
LeRette is a currently an investigator for the Superior Police Department.
The federal lawsuit was filed in March 2025. It has two key claims in it.
The lawsuit alleges LeRette’s squad car was illegally tracked by Capt. Champaigne, and that she was not given appropriate privacy when expressing breast milk following her pregnancy and return to work.
The lawsuit comes as Superior Mayor Jim Paine says the Superior Police Department is dealing with “urgent” internal struggles and an outside review is needed as soon as possible to keep the situation from becoming a “crisis.” Mayor Paine made his concerns known at the April 17 Public Safety Committee meeting.
The mayor said there are a number of cultural issues, interpersonal conflicts, and potential personnel concerns that have “overwhelmed” the ability of senior administration.
RELATED: Mayor: Superior Police Dept. Internal Struggles Near Possible ‘Crisis’
Some of the incidents in the lawsuit allegedly happened before and after LeRette’s husband became Chief of Police.
Winterscheidt became chief Jan. 27, 2024.
The suit claims in November of 2022, LeRette requested a place to “express her breast milk during the working day and would need breaks from work and a suitable place to do so.”
The suit says, “There was no area within the police department designated for lactating mothers. Because there was no better alternative offered to her by her superiors, Plaintiff LeRette agreed to put a chair in the women’s locker room (which includes toilets, sinks, and showers, and almost no privacy)…. she would place a chair behind a curtain in the shower stall, use an extension cord to connect the pump to electricity in the shower area.”
LeRette says she complained about the accommodations to then Police Chief Nicholas Alexander and no additional actions were taken.
The court filing continues to allege, “From November of 2022 until September of 2023 Plaintiff LeRette experienced countless interruptions while expressing breast milk, including interruptions from male janitorial staff, male members of the police department and [her direct supervisor] entering the shower stall and turning the lights off on Plaintiff LeRette while she was lactating and sighing loudly in disgust while doing so.”
A separate issue in the suit also claims then Capt. Champaigne placed an electronic tracking device on the police vehicle that had been assigned to LeRette.
The suit says the tracking device was moved to a different vehicle when LeRette was assigned to a new vehicle.
The lawsuit alleges that even after Champaigne’s retirement, her vehicle still had a tracking device placed on it.
It is not know when the tracking stopped. The suit says the tracking was on-going from at least Feb. 28, 2024 to Mar. 25, 2024.
The court filing did not specifically explain how LeRette discovered the tracking timeframe.
LeRette says she never consented to having a tracking device on her car. The suit continues to claim the tracking of her car was illegal because there was no warrant authorizing LeRette’s vehicles to be tracked.
There are no future scheduled hearings for the case at this point. Lawyers for each side of the case have until early May to filed additional documents including certain pretrial motions, objections, or request that the court can determine the case without a trial on the merits. After those filings are made it is expected the judge will schedule future hearings.
