Why should Wisconsin citizens get stuck with the $200,000 tab paid to an innocent Wisconsin woman who was the victim of a political prosecution by the United States Dept of Justice?

State Representative Pedro Colon (D-Milwaukee) says the federal government should foot the bill, not Wisconsin taxpayers.

United States Attorney Stephen Biskupic was excoriated by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit last year in an extraordinary decision that freed the innocent state worker, Georgia Thompson.

From the Associated Press:

MADISON,Wis. (AP) -- A lawmaker wants the state to force the federal government to reimburse an employee who was wrongly convicted in federal court.

The Legislature's budget committee voted to recommend reimbursing Georgia Thompson more than $228,000 in attorney's fees and other costs stemming from her wrongful conviction.

But Democratic Rep. Pedro Colon of Milwaukee says he will push for an amendment requiring the Wisconsin Department of Justice to pursue all reasonable means to collect that money from the federal government.

He says Thompson's prosecution was politically motivated to damage Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. Thompson was convicted of steering a contract to a supporter of the governor.

She spent four months in prison before an appeals court ruled she was innocent.

For more information:

- U.S. Atty Scandal Broadens, Thompson Prosecution Retains Focus of National Media and Congress

- A Woman Wrongly Convicted and a U.S. Attorney Who Kept His Job

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