DARLINGTON - A Grant County man found guilty at a jury trial in October of recklessly endangering the safety of a Shullsburg woman was sentenced last week to three years in prison and four years on extended supervision.
David Arnold Heisz, 59, Bagley, was sentenced Dec. 20 in Lafayette County Circuit Court on felony convictions of false imprisonment and first-degree recklessly endangering safety and a misdemeanor conviction of battery. He faced up to 13 years and three months in prison and nine years on extended supervision on the convictions.
A jury in October found him not guilty of kidnapping and attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
"It's abnormal to have a 59-year-old person before the court with a major felony offense and no significant prior record," Judge Thomas Vale said during his ruling. State court records show no criminal record for Heisz prior to this year.
The case stems from an incident March 2 in the Town of White Oak Springs. A Lafayette County Sheriff's deputy responding to a 911 call that night found a woman "panicking and crying" and running in a field off County I.
Another deputy conducting an unrelated traffic stop nearby on County W reported hearing a single gunshot minutes earlier. A .45 shell casing was later located on Penny Benton Road.
The woman, 30-year-old Kami Adolf, told law enforcement that Heisz had accused her of stealing money from him. He showed up that night at her Shullsburg apartment and told her to get in his Cadillac.
"I didn't take the money, and I trusted him," Adolf testified at the jury trial in October.
But once inside his car, she noticed a handgun in the pocket of his jacket and got scared. When she tried to get out at an intersection, she said Heisz grabbed her arm and said, "You aren't going nowhere," then kept driving.
On Penny Benton Road, Adolf said, Heisz pulled over, turned off the car lights and asked her, "What are we going to do about this?" She asked him not to kill her.
According to Adolf's testimony, she tried next to get out of the car when Heisz punched her head and ear and then forced her head down to the car's center console and grabbed her by the hair. She said at that point she fought back by grabbing his beard and kicking him. She was able to kick her way free and got out of the car.
A clump of hair later found on Heisz was entered into evidence.
Adolf said she took off running and got 20 to 25 feet away when she heard a gunshot. She called 911 and continued running through a dense forest in pitch-black conditions until she found the road.
Vale took issue with Heisz's reaction.
"The thing that I keep coming back to is the way you behaved when you discovered you had been robbed," he said to Heisz. "If it was a hundred bucks, you might say, 'I'm not going to make a big deal out of this.'"
If it was a significant amount of money, the normal reaction would be "I'm not going to confront the person, I'm going to call the sheriff," Vale said. "That's what society does. I can speculate that you didn't want police involved because this money was ill-gotten and you don't want the police to know how you came to have this money."
Still, Vale said, "there is no rational justification to confront this person in this manner, other than you had other legal issues that you had going on that you didn't want to have come to the surface."
Several questions remain unanswered in the case, for example how much money was allegedly taken, and why it was there in the first place, Vale said.
"Perhaps they were a party to a crime," Vale said of Adolf and Heisz. But, Vale told Heisz, "it was your actions and your decision and you acted premeditated."
There is circumstantial evidence the money may have been drug-related. Adolf has a misdemeanor conviction in Lafayette County of possessing crystal methamphetamine in December 2016, and Heisz was arrested and reportedly found with drugs in September on an interstate in Pennsylvania.
Heisz was traveling alone in a California rental car on Sept. 26 and said he was en route to Whitehaven, Pennsylvania, according to court records. A search of the car produced two grams of crystal methamphetamine, six doses of LSD and 10 grams of psilocybin (psychedelic) mushrooms, along with drug paraphernalia.
A review hearing is set for Feb. 7 on felony bail jumping charges in Lafayette County related to Heisz's Pennsylvania arrest. At that hearing, the court will also address issues related to Heisz's reckless endangerment case, including a determination of whether his impounded Cadillac may be returned and his cash bond refunded to his family.
When given the opportunity to address the court at his sentencing last week, Heisz said he was "extremely sorry to Kami Adolf for the hardship she has endured."
"I acknowledge my conduct was wrong and accept responsibility for it," he said. "This has been a life-changing experience. I have never been incarcerated and my health has deteriorated rapidly. I don't think I have much time left. I will be 60 years old in January and I don't want to die in jail. If the court could put me on probation, you will never see me here again. I just want to go home."
Judge Vale said he didn't believe probation was appropriate in the case, given "the severity of the offense and the violent nature of this case."
"She said she didn't do it, let me out here," Vale said. "You didn't let her. What was the point of going beyond that? Other than to coerce or harm this person. It could have stopped right there."
- Brian Lund of the Republican Journal contributed reporting
David Arnold Heisz, 59, Bagley, was sentenced Dec. 20 in Lafayette County Circuit Court on felony convictions of false imprisonment and first-degree recklessly endangering safety and a misdemeanor conviction of battery. He faced up to 13 years and three months in prison and nine years on extended supervision on the convictions.
A jury in October found him not guilty of kidnapping and attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
"It's abnormal to have a 59-year-old person before the court with a major felony offense and no significant prior record," Judge Thomas Vale said during his ruling. State court records show no criminal record for Heisz prior to this year.
The case stems from an incident March 2 in the Town of White Oak Springs. A Lafayette County Sheriff's deputy responding to a 911 call that night found a woman "panicking and crying" and running in a field off County I.
Another deputy conducting an unrelated traffic stop nearby on County W reported hearing a single gunshot minutes earlier. A .45 shell casing was later located on Penny Benton Road.
The woman, 30-year-old Kami Adolf, told law enforcement that Heisz had accused her of stealing money from him. He showed up that night at her Shullsburg apartment and told her to get in his Cadillac.
"I didn't take the money, and I trusted him," Adolf testified at the jury trial in October.
But once inside his car, she noticed a handgun in the pocket of his jacket and got scared. When she tried to get out at an intersection, she said Heisz grabbed her arm and said, "You aren't going nowhere," then kept driving.
On Penny Benton Road, Adolf said, Heisz pulled over, turned off the car lights and asked her, "What are we going to do about this?" She asked him not to kill her.
According to Adolf's testimony, she tried next to get out of the car when Heisz punched her head and ear and then forced her head down to the car's center console and grabbed her by the hair. She said at that point she fought back by grabbing his beard and kicking him. She was able to kick her way free and got out of the car.
A clump of hair later found on Heisz was entered into evidence.
Adolf said she took off running and got 20 to 25 feet away when she heard a gunshot. She called 911 and continued running through a dense forest in pitch-black conditions until she found the road.
Vale took issue with Heisz's reaction.
"The thing that I keep coming back to is the way you behaved when you discovered you had been robbed," he said to Heisz. "If it was a hundred bucks, you might say, 'I'm not going to make a big deal out of this.'"
If it was a significant amount of money, the normal reaction would be "I'm not going to confront the person, I'm going to call the sheriff," Vale said. "That's what society does. I can speculate that you didn't want police involved because this money was ill-gotten and you don't want the police to know how you came to have this money."
Still, Vale said, "there is no rational justification to confront this person in this manner, other than you had other legal issues that you had going on that you didn't want to have come to the surface."
Several questions remain unanswered in the case, for example how much money was allegedly taken, and why it was there in the first place, Vale said.
"Perhaps they were a party to a crime," Vale said of Adolf and Heisz. But, Vale told Heisz, "it was your actions and your decision and you acted premeditated."
There is circumstantial evidence the money may have been drug-related. Adolf has a misdemeanor conviction in Lafayette County of possessing crystal methamphetamine in December 2016, and Heisz was arrested and reportedly found with drugs in September on an interstate in Pennsylvania.
Heisz was traveling alone in a California rental car on Sept. 26 and said he was en route to Whitehaven, Pennsylvania, according to court records. A search of the car produced two grams of crystal methamphetamine, six doses of LSD and 10 grams of psilocybin (psychedelic) mushrooms, along with drug paraphernalia.
A review hearing is set for Feb. 7 on felony bail jumping charges in Lafayette County related to Heisz's Pennsylvania arrest. At that hearing, the court will also address issues related to Heisz's reckless endangerment case, including a determination of whether his impounded Cadillac may be returned and his cash bond refunded to his family.
When given the opportunity to address the court at his sentencing last week, Heisz said he was "extremely sorry to Kami Adolf for the hardship she has endured."
"I acknowledge my conduct was wrong and accept responsibility for it," he said. "This has been a life-changing experience. I have never been incarcerated and my health has deteriorated rapidly. I don't think I have much time left. I will be 60 years old in January and I don't want to die in jail. If the court could put me on probation, you will never see me here again. I just want to go home."
Judge Vale said he didn't believe probation was appropriate in the case, given "the severity of the offense and the violent nature of this case."
"She said she didn't do it, let me out here," Vale said. "You didn't let her. What was the point of going beyond that? Other than to coerce or harm this person. It could have stopped right there."
- Brian Lund of the Republican Journal contributed reporting