Categories: OLD Media Moves

Ex-reporter barred from Milwaukee business newspaper

Pete Millard, a former real estate reporter at the Milwaukee Business Journal, has been barred from the offices of the weekly paper and from contacting its workers, reports Michael Horne of Milwaukee magazine.

Horne writes, “Last week, Millard appeared in Milwaukee County Circuit Court to face a request for a harassment restraining order. The petitioner alleging harassment isn’t named in court records, but court minutes show that Business Journal publisher Mark Sabljak was present at the hearing to testify in favor of the order. The judge granted the order, which will last four years and prohibits Millard from contacting Business Journal employees or setting foot on the weekly’s premises. He’s also banned from possessing a firearm and was required to hand all of his guns over to the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department.

“Millard was dismissed from the Business Journal without public comment in June. In August, Pressroom Buzz reported that Millard, 57, was arrested in May on several misdemeanor alcohol, drug and weapons charges in Grant County, including operating a firearm while intoxicated, carrying a handgun where alcohol is sold or consumed, driving while intoxicated, possession of THC (an active ingredient in marijuana) and possession of drug paraphernalia. The Grant County Sheriff’s Department also accused Millard of having both open intoxicants and an uncased gun in his vehicle and refusing to take a sobriety test. He pleaded not guilty to the charges in July.

“The sheriff’s department caught up with Millard, according to a Dubuque Telegraph-Herald story based on police reports, after someone called in to report that a man was shooting off a gun near Ally Oop’s Bar in Livingston, Wis. Police alleged Millard was driving a 2006 Dodge Durango on a county road. A search of the SUV reportedly uncovered marijuana, the drug paraphernalia, a Glock .45-caliber handgun and two loaded magazines. Patrons at the bar also told police that Millard had ‘displayed the handgun’ there prior to his arrest.”

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Michael Horne says:
September 21, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Thank you for posting this item on your forum. My intent in publishing it was not so much to demonize Millard for his apparent decline, but to offer a cautionary tale. Workplace violence can happen in a newsroom.