LAURENE GRAMLING LAMBACH and CHRISTOPHER R. LAMBACH v. BRIAN CONTE and MILWAUKEE COUNTY

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Argued June 6, 2023
Decided June 15, 2023
Before
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
No. 22-3118
LAURENE GRAMLING LAMBACH
and CHRISTOPHER R. LAMBACH,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
BRIAN CONTE and MILWAUKEE
COUNTY,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of
Wisconsin.
No. 21-CV-1032-JPS
J.P. Stadtmueller,
Judge.
O R D E R
Based upon a municipal investigation into an allegation of theft by fraud and the
statements of a number of witnesses, Laurene Lambach was arrested. She was released
after one day and never charged with a crime. She sued Milwaukee County and the
detective who spearheaded the investigation, asserting they violated her Fourth
Amendment rights by arresting her without probable cause. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The
district court entered summary judgment for the defendants. Because probable cause
existed that a crime had been committed, which supported Lambach’s arrest, we affirm.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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I. Background
A. Factual1
Lambach managed three non-profit organizations in Milwaukee: She headed
S.E.T. Ministry, Inc. (“S.E.T.”), assisted with the financial operations of Interfaith Older
Adult Programs, Inc. (“Interfaith”), and became executive director of the merger of
those two organizations, Unison MKE (“Unison”).
The fraud investigation that led to this suit is based on events from late 2017,
prior to the merger. Interfaith received a grant from Milwaukee County where the
County would reimburse Interfaith for qualifying purchases made within a certain
timeframe. On December 31, 2017, the last day on which Lambach could request
reimbursement from Milwaukee County under the grant, she ordered $17,000 worth of
computer equipment for Interfaith. That same month the County received from
Lambach a corresponding request for reimbursement for the purchase. Lambach also
later reported to the County that she had used its grant money to buy the equipment.
But the computer order was never filled, and Interfaith received no equipment.
A few months later, Milwaukee County launched a fraud investigation. It
received an anonymous complaint alleging that Lambach had defrauded the County by
using its grant money to buy computer equipment. Matthew Hart, who oversaw fraud
investigations for the County, spoke with four witnesses about the allegations. Those
witnesses suggested Lambach had falsified Interfaith’s spending by cancelling purchase
orders while still receiving the public funds. Hart referred the matter and his findings to
the Milwaukee County’s Sheriff’s Office, where Detective Brian Conte took over the
investigation.
Conte’s inquiry yielded similar evidence. He interviewed six witnesses,
including the four with whom Hart had spoken. Five were Interfaith employees who
provided similar information. One explained that under Lambach’s management,
Interfaith underspent the grant money for 2017. The witness said that Lambach had
placed the last-minute computer order on December 31, 2017, to snatch the remaining
grant funds, but then cancelled the order even though she still requested
reimbursement for the cost of the equipment. Other witnesses concurred. Unknown to
1 We view the facts in the light most favorable to Lambach, the nonmoving
party. See Perry v. Sims, 990 F.3d 505, 511 (7th Cir. 2021).

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No. 22-3118 Page 3
Conte, these witnesses had started a competing business while they still worked for
Interfaith and bid for jobs with the County.
Eventually, Conte requested warrants to search Interfaith’s and S.E.T.’s offices.
He swore that based on his investigation he had probable cause to believe that Lambach
committed theft by fraud under Wis. Stat. § 943.20(1)(d) and that the premises
contained evidence of it. A state judge issued the search warrants. While the police
conducted the searches, Conte arrested Lambach. He later stated he did so to prevent
her from destroying evidence. Upon arrest, Lambach received her Miranda warnings.
A few hours after her arrest, she asked Conte and two other officers to speak to
Unison’s corporate attorney, but she was not allowed to do so. Her husband retained a
different lawyer with whom Lambach met the next day. In the meantime, after she
asked for counsel, Conte did not question Lambach, and she later testified she did not
speak to the police about the allegations against her. The day after her arrest a state
judge determined that probable cause supported the arrest for theft by fraud. That night
Lambach was released on bail. After her release, Conte subpoenaed her personal
financial records, which did not show that she had personally taken any funds from
Interfaith. Lambach was never charged with a crime.
B. Procedural
Lambach and her husband sued Conte and Milwaukee County in federal court.
Among their claims, they alleged that Conte lacked probable cause to arrest Lambach,
and that he and the County denied Lambach her right to counsel under the Fifth or
Sixth Amendments. The defendants moved for summary judgment. They argued there
was no violation of her right to counsel and that the information Conte received from
Hart and the six witnesses supplied probable cause that she committed theft by fraud.
Lambach replied that the witnesses were not credible because they held a grudge
against her.
The district court entered summary judgment for the defendants. As relevant on
appeal, the court concluded that undisputed facts showed Conte had probable cause to
arrest Lambach. Before the arrest, Conte spoke with witnesses who responded
consistent with one another and with the investigator that Lambach had acted to
defraud the County. The detective was unaware that the witnesses had started a
competing business. The court also ruled that the Sixth Amendment did not apply and
that Conte did not violate Lambach’s Fifth Amendment rights because no statements
she made were used against her. Finally, the court ruled that a claim of municipal

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liability failed because Lambach had no viable right-to-counsel claim, and if she did, she
failed to allege that a County policy deprived her of that right.
II. Discussion
On appeal, Lambach contends she presented a triable Fourth Amendment claim
that she was arrested for theft by fraud without probable cause.2 We review de novo
the district court’s entry of summary judgment on this claim. Perry, 990 F.3d at 511.
Theft by fraud is defined as “[o]btaining title to property of another person by
intentionally deceiving the person with a false representation which is known to be
false, made with intent to defraud, and which does defraud the person to whom it is
made.” WIS . S TAT. § 943.20(1)(d); see Wis. JI—Criminal 1453A.
According to Lambach, the facts here did not justify her arrest for theft by fraud.
In her view, all the police knew when they arrested her was that “Milwaukee County
awarded grants to S.E.T. Ministry and/or UNISON” and that Lambach “ordered some
computers with the tail end of that money.” But together with these facts that Lambach
concedes, the police had additional facts:
 Before Conte arrested Lambach, five witnesses from Interfaith, each who
worked with her, told Conte based on their firsthand knowledge that
Lambach had falsely informed the County that she was using its grant money
to buy equipment.
 Four of these witnesses gave that same information to Hart when he
interviewed them.
 Hart informed Conte that a witness provided records which showed that in
December 2017, Lambach ordered $17,000 worth of computer equipment,
which the County reimbursed, and that this witness informed Hart that
Lambach cancelled the order.
Probable cause exists if, “based on the facts and circumstances at the time of the
arrest, a reasonable officer would conclude that the suspect has committed … a crime.”
Matthews v. City of East St. Louis, 675 F.3d 703, 706 (7th Cir. 2012). “[A]s long as a
2 At oral argument, Lambach waived her claims that Conte violated her Fifth or
Sixth Amendment rights. See Oral Argument at 1:43. So, we do not discuss Lambach’s
right-to-counsel claims or her related attempt in her briefs to establish municipal
liability for the same alleged violations.

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reasonably credible witness or victim informs the police that someone has committed a
crime, or is committing, a crime, the officers have probable cause” to arrest. Id. The
Supreme Court has called probable cause “a fluid concept—turning on the assessment
of probabilities in particular factual contexts … .” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 232
(1983).
The facts Conte knew, viewed from the standpoint of an objectively reasonable
police officer, amounted to probable cause that Lambach had committed theft by fraud
under the requirements of Wisconsin Statute § 943.20(1)(d):
Obtaining property of another. The witnesses told Conte that Lambach as the
CEO/Executive Director of Interfaith/Unison had obtained the property of another—the
County—by using grant funds for the purchase order.
Making a false representation known to be false. The numerous witness statements
allowed Conte to reasonably believe that Lambach made a representation she knew was
false. She knowingly failed to amend, correct, or withdraw the expense reimbursement
request that she submitted to the county for the amount of the Dell purchase order after
she cancelled the order or learned it had been cancelled. This resulted in
Interfaith/Unison neither paying for nor receiving the equipment, as Lambach had
represented to the County.
Made with intent to defraud and which does defraud. Also based on the information
described above, Conte could reasonably infer that Lambach intended to and did
defraud the County by this false representation and failure to correct that
representation. Several witnesses, including Jodi Bauer, Catherine Wood, and Vevette
Hill-Nwagbaraocha, described Lambach’s actions as “fraud” and relayed statements
and/or conduct by her which permit the conclusion that she misrepresented the
spending of grant funds.
Recall also that before and after Lambach was detained, state court judges
determined that probable cause existed that a crime had been committed—first to issue
the search warrants, and second following her arrest for theft by fraud. These
determinations, bookends to Lambach’s arrest, buttress our conclusion that probable
cause existed to arrest her.
Lambach insists that the witnesses were biased against her, which she says
destroys probable cause. But in deciding “to arrest someone for criminal conduct that
he did not witness, a police officer may rely on information provided to him … by an

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eyewitness to the crime that the officer reasonably believes is telling the truth.” Holmes
v. Vill. of Hoffman Estates, 511 F.3d 673, 680 (7th Cir. 2007). Lambach concedes that Conte
was unaware of the witnesses’ potential bias, so she disputes that his belief could be
reasonable that they were telling the truth. On our review, Conte’s belief was
reasonable for the same reasons witnesses are often deemed trustworthy: they offered
responses that were consistent over time, the witnesses corroborated each other, and the
witnesses’ statements were consistent with the available documents. Moreover, once the
probable cause threshold was met, Conte was under no duty to inquire further into the
witnesses’ backgrounds to tease out possible biases or grudges. See Matthews, 675 F.3d
at 707 (“[T]his court has emphasized that once probable cause has been established,
officials have ‘no constitutional obligation to conduct further investigation in the hopes
of uncovering potentially exculpatory evidence.’”) (internal citation omitted).
Lambach makes three other arguments as to why probable cause was not present
here. First, she proposes that Conte should have waited to review the results of the
searches before arresting her. She relies on Sornberger v. City of Knoxville, 434 F.3d 1006
(7th Cir. 2006), to argue that an arrest is premature if a search could clarify who
committed a crime. But in Sornberger the police had conflicting information—an
eyewitness description of the suspect differed from the suspect’s true appearance. Here,
Conte had only consistent and corroborating information, obviating the need to await a
search.
Second, Lambach suggests that probable cause was lacking because she was
never charged. But “[p]robable cause does not depend on the witness turning out to
have been right; it’s what the police know, not whether they know the truth, that
matters.” Gramenos v. Jewel Cos., Inc., 797 F.2d 432, 439 (7th Cir. 1986). Some criminal
investigations do not reach the level of probable cause, while others do. And countless
investigations and arrests result in matters that the prosecutor decides do not or should
not result in criminal charges. Just because an investigation and arrest did not result in
criminal charges does not make the arrest false and violative of the constitutional rights
of the individual arrested, and thus compensable in a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Third, Lambach contends that Conte never had information that she took money
personally. But theft by fraud does not require that the suspect retain the fraudulently
obtained property for herself. See State v. O’Neil, 416 N.W.2d 77, 80 (Wis. Ct. App. 1987).

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In her reply brief, Lambach also raises new, unrelated arguments, but these
arrive too late and are thus waived. See Wonsey v. City of Chicago, 940 F.3d 394, 398 (7th
Cir. 2019).
AFFIRMED

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