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"Four Milwaukee police officers accused of conducting illegal strip searches pleaded not guilty Thursday morning.Officer Michael Vagnini faces 25 counts, many of them felonies, accusing him of sexual assaults, illegal strip and body cavity searches and misconduct in office.Jeffrey Dollhopf is charged with two counts of violations of the strip search law and two counts of misconduct in public office.Brian Kozelek and Jacob Knight are each charged with one count of violation of the strip search law and one count of misconduct in office.Prosecutors said Vagnini was the ringleader, and the other three officers didn't stop him.\"He would've had to know that Officer Vagnini had not obtained the requisite permission to conduct that form or manner of a search. There's no assertion that he had that knowledge,\" Kozelek's attorney Patrick Brennan said.But the district attorney said simply being there and not objecting is enough for criminal charges.\"The fact that they never interrupted any of these acts or sought authorization to conduct these searches is indicative of their assistance of Officer Vagnini in conducting these unauthorized searches,\" Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm said.The officers are expected to be back in court for a pretrial hearing next month.\u00A0 The trial is scheduled to start in April.\"It's what I would've expected in a case like this, and again, it's up to the state to prove their case, and a normal response from defense attorneys on behalf of their clients, so nothing I wouldn't have expected,\" said Jonathan Safran, an attorney for the victims.They remain suspended from the department and free without bail.You can read the criminal complaint by clicking here. WARNING: Details contained in the criminal complaint are graphic."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.wisn.com/article/four-milwaukee-officers-accused-of-illegal-strip-searches-plead-not-guilty-1/6312324>