A Wisconsin state lawmaker who faced a disorderly conduct charge tied to an internal dispute with her Assembly Democratic caucus pleaded no contest on Friday in Milwaukee County, The Associated Press reported.
In court, Sylvia Ortiz-Velez pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor disorderly conduct count, and Judge Paul Malloy ordered her to pay a $300 fine and submit a DNA sample, according to AP. AP reported that the charge could have resulted in up to 90 days in jail. The plea was entered at a hearing Friday, after prosecutors charged her in February.
Ortiz-Velez said after the sentencing that she would pay the fine and remained focused on her constituents rather than caucus infighting. In a statement cited by AP, she said her “voting choices caused a rift that has been ugly and bitter,” and added: “My constituents did not send me to Madison to litigate internal caucus disputes or be distracted by the personal feuds — they sent me there to deliver results.”
The dispute at the center of the case, as described in the criminal complaint cited by AP, began in August while Democratic Assembly members were planning resolutions for Hispanic Heritage Month in September, including resolutions honoring Hispanic heritage and Hispanic veterans. AP reported that Ortiz-Velez grew angry because she believed an unnamed lawmaker involved in drafting one of the resolutions intentionally excluded her from working on it.
According to the complaint, Ortiz-Velez had been invited in June to work on the heritage resolution but chose not to participate while still wanting to help draft the language. The complaint also said she contacted media outlets saying she had been intentionally left out, and that she told the author she felt excluded from working on another Hispanic veterans resolution, citing that her late husband was a Hispanic veteran, AP reported.
The complaint further alleged that two unnamed lawmakers told investigators Ortiz-Velez, in separate phone conversations, said she would spread “negative personal information” about the resolutions’ author to the media and that “they are going to do what I want them to do, or I’m going to x, y and z,” AP said. When one of the lawmakers asked what that meant, AP reported that Ortiz-Velez made comments about the resolutions’ author’s personal life and other legislators; the complaint characterized the remarks as “indecent and tended to disrupt the good public order,” without additional detail.
In the broader timeline described by AP, Democratic leaders issued a statement in September saying Ortiz-Velez made a comment about shooting three caucus members—an assertion that the article said appeared a day after an announcement that she was leaving the Democratic caucus. AP also reported that interviews with Wisconsin Right Now and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel included Ortiz-Velez’s denial that she threatened her colleagues, and that the Legislature’s human resources office barred her from entering the state Capitol for a day.
Ortiz-Velez’s attorney, Michael Chernin, told AP in a telephone interview Friday that Democratic leaders were already upset with her going into September because she voted for the 2025-27 state budget and for new legislative maps drawn under Gov. Tony Evers in 2024. AP reported that Democrats opposed the spending plan in part over school funding, and argued the Wisconsin Supreme Court should have drawn the legislative maps.
Chernin also told AP that Rep. Priscilla Prado, a Milwaukee Democrat, would not allow Ortiz-Velez to participate in the Hispanic resolutions. AP reported that two of the lawmakers identified in the complaint as unnamed alleged to investigators that Ortiz-Velez threatened to expose unsavory elements of Prado’s personal life to the media. Chernin characterized the dispute as petty, telling AP: “It’s incredibly petty, and Sylvia didn’t want any part of this. Sylvia truly wanted to spare Prado any sort of embarrassment on this.”
A spokesperson for Assembly Democratic Minority Leader Greta Neubauer did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AP, and AP reported that no one immediately responded to messages left with Prado’s Capitol office seeking comment on Friday afternoon.