Sheriffs outraged that dealer charged in woman’s death was free

Drug dealer Karl A. Rieves Jr. should have never been out on the streets, two area sheriffs said, but because he was, a Hartford woman who overdosed in June on the fentanyl and cocaine he is accused of selling her is dead.

Rieves, who served a prison sentence and was under the supervision of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections for a prior felony conviction and was free in lieu of bail in two Waupaca County cases, one charging him with reckless homicide for selling drugs, should have been behind bars but wasn’t because of failed supervision and a court system that set him free, Washington County Sheriff Martin Schulteis and Ozaukee County Sheriff Christy Knowles said.

Rieves was eventually arrested in December and held in the Ozaukee County jail after being charged with trying to kick in the door of his ex-girlfriend’s home in Grafton, where he had been staying last year.

Last week, the 30-year-old Milwaukee resident was charged with first-degree reckless homicide in Washington County in connection with the June overdose death of the Hartford woman.

“As a public safety leader and the elected sheriff of Washington County, I am simply appalled,” Schulteis said in a statement, adding that Rieves is a suspect in at least five other overdose deaths.

“It is incomprehensible to me how this individual was allowed to remain in society and continue selling dangerous drugs throughout Wisconsin. Despite being arrested and charged for similar offenses, and while on extended supervision from the Wisconsin DOC, his supervision was never revoked. To only compound matters, he was then granted a cash bond in Waupaca County, allowing him to commit another deadly crime in Washington County.

“The fact he was able to exploit the criminal justice system and operate with impunity is a systematic failure to the citizens I represent.”

Knowles said in an interview Tuesday, “Sheriff Schulteis is right, this offender should have never been out on the streets.

“To go to prison for committing dangerous offenses, then get out and while on supervision commit more crimes is very concerning. Who was supervising him?”

Saying Ozaukee County judges and prosecutors have a track record of being tough on crime, Knowles said, “I would expect the same from the state. If he (Rieves) wasn’t out on the streets, maybe these people would have had a chance.”

A man who apparently was the Hartford woman’s partner later also died of an overdose after buying drugs from Rieves, although he is not charged with the man’s death.

“Something definitely fell through the cracks here,” Knowles said. “We have to do better.”

Rieves was charged in Washington County Circuit Court last week with homicide for delivering drugs, as well as a litany of other offenses, a day after the Ozaukee County Special Response Team and Washington County deputies served a search warrant at the home of his ex-girlfriend on 12th Avenue in Grafton on Thursday, Jan. 9.

Rieves also faces three counts of conspiracy to deliver fentanyl, conspiracy to deliver cocaine and eight counts of felony bail jumping.

In Ozaukee County, he is charged with two counts of felony bail jumping and disorderly conduct.

According to the criminal complaint filed in Washington County, a Hartford police officer who was dispatched to a home in Hartford at 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 5, was directed by a child to the master bedroom, where she found a man performing CPR on a woman. The officer took over chest compressions and noticed the woman was cold to the touch. An emergency medical worker determined she didn’t have a pulse.

An officer noticed that the woman had fresh needle marks on her arm and there was a large number of used hypodermic needles inside a drawer in the room.

During a search of the home, authorities found a receipt with residue on it that tested positive for fentanyl in the woman’s purse and cocaine in her bedroom.

An autopsy determined her death was caused by intoxication from fentanyl and cocaine.

Two children in the home told an officer that they had gone to court that morning with their mother and father for a hearing the woman had and returned home at about 11 a.m. They said they then watched TV in the living room while their mother was in her bedroom.

A man at the house, whose relationship to the woman and children is not specified  in the complaint, said the woman had purchased drugs — probably heroin although she also used crack cocaine — on June 3 and had used them over the next few days.

He said he and the woman struggled with drug addiction and had both used Vivitrol to treat their opioid dependency, but the medication had worn off about two weeks earlier and they relapsed.

The man said the woman used heroin after midnight on the day she died. The family went to her court hearing at 9:45 a.m. that day and returned home at about noon. He said he went to the store and when he returned he found the woman in distress in the master bedroom. The man said he injected her with Narcan, then called 911.

But in a subsequent interview, the man told authorities that he went to Milwaukee on June 4 to purchase heroin and/or fentanyl from a man both he and the woman knew as “Mikey.” He said the woman liked the high she got from Mikey’s drugs, adding that Mikey’s fentanyl is more potent than most and he didn’t want the woman to use it. He said he tried some of it, noting it “was, indeed, very potent stuff,” the complaint states.

When the man returned home, he put the rest of the fentanyl, described as a large chunk, in a nightstand next to the bed he shared with the woman. After her death, he checked the nightstand and found only crumbs of fentanyl remaining.

Authorities traced the phone number the man used to contact Mikey to Rieves, then arranged for the man to set up a drug deal they monitored. The man drove to Milwaukee on July 1, met Mikey, who drove up in a Dodge Durango SUV, and gave him $100 for fentanyl. After the deal, a Waukesha County sheriff’s deputy followed the Durango and identified the driver as Rieves, according to the complaint.

Authorities put a GPS tracker on the Durango, which was a rental vehicle, and on July 9 learned that it was in a Milwaukee Police Department impound lot because it had been involved in a shooting and was riddled with bullet holes.

From mid to late July until at least Sept. 25, authorities using GPS trackers they placed on a number of different vehicles rented by Rieves, kept him under surveillance at the Grafton home where he was staying.

During this time, authorities had the Hartford man set up a number of so-called controlled buys from Rieves in Milwaukee,  on Nov. 15 he was found dead of an apparent drug overdose, the complaint states.

Between Dec. 8 and Jan. 5, authorities conducting covert surveillance witnessed about 32 drug deals involving Rieves and his 19-year-old nephew Tony R. Robinson Jr. near an apartment on North 29th Street in Milwaukee, according to the complaint.

At 6 a.m. Jan. 9, authorities raided that apartment and found Robinson sleeping with a woman in a bedroom, his half-brother Laron Horton trying to run away and their mother in the living room, the complaint states.

Some of Rieves’ belongings were in the apartment, where authorities also found $24,872, a stolen Glock handgun that had been modified with a machine gun conversion device and 35.8 grams of fentanyl, according to the complaint.

Robinson and Horton, 22, were also charged in Washington County Circuit Court last week with drug offenses.

At the time of the raid, Rieves was in the Ozaukee County jail in connection with a Nov. 22 incident at the Grafton home of his ex-girlfriend, who said Rieves tried to kick in the back door of her home.

Court records indicate that a warrant for Rieves’ arrest was issued after that incident and he was in the custody of the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office by Dec. 30.

Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Adam Gerol set his bail at $25,000 but later reduced it to $10,000, although by that time a probation hold had been placed on Rieves.

A Washington County circuit judge set Rieves’ bail at $250,000 last week.

According to court records, Rieves’ felony record dates to December 2019 when he pleaded guilty to delivering heroin in Milwaukee County. He was sentenced on Feb. 26, 2020, to one year in prison and two years of extended supervision.

In February 2021, he pleaded guilty to delivering heroin in Waukesha County. A judge sentenced him in May of that year to four years in prison and four years of extended supervision but stayed the sentence, placed him on probation for four years and ordered him to serve nine months in jail as a condition of probation.

In December 2022, Rieves was charged with first-degree reckless homicide-delivery of drugs in Waupaca County. His bail was set at $10,000, which he posted.

In April 2024, he was charged again in Waupaca County, this time with first-degree recklessly endangering safety, and again his bail was set at $10,000, which he posted.

Both Waupaca County cases are pending.