Local News
UW-O Lawsuit One Step Closer To Being Finished
The civil lawsuit involving UW-Oshkosh and two former UW-O officials is one step closer to being finished. The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee Wednesday approved a settlement between the UW Board of Regents and Richard Wells and Thomas Sonnleitner.
The lawsuit was just one of the pieces in the case against the former chancellor and vice chancellor as it pertained to the financial relationship between UW-Oshkosh and the private, non-profit UW-Oshkosh Foundation. At their January 15 sentencing, Wells and Sonnleitner were each fined $5,000 and ordered to pay over $70,000 in restitution over the next 2 years.
Between 2012 and 2016 the foundation set up five limited liability companies to fund five different projects. A federal bankruptcy judge ruled UWO has to pay $15 million to cover the debts that occurred as a result of the 5 LLC’s the foundation had set up under the approval of Wells and Sonnleitner.