(School Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
After almost four months of pressure from the public, the Kenosha Unified School District has terminated 59-year old IT Staffer Michael Russell. On February 28, we told you that Russell was placed on administrative leave for allegations of misconduct. The Kenosha Unified School District didn’t release the harrowing details to the students, parents, or even, the police. In an email dated June 22nd, Kenosha Superintendent Jeff Weiss admitted to KCE that it isn’t the district’s policy to notify law enforcement for reports of sexal misconduct of staff. Law enforcement was only notified after our initial report went out. Russell has been accused by at least three young girls of sexual misconduct. One young lady is a former member of Mt. Sinai Church in North Chicago. She says that Michael Russell groomed her and had intercourse with her over a multi-year span when she was only in 8th grade according to Illinois court documents.
Russell is a trustee at the church. The church has another couple of familiar faces – Tamarra Coleman and her husband, Michael are leaders in the church. Michael is an associate minister at Mt. Sinai. In the court documents, it is alleged that the relationship between Russell and the little girl was common knowledge at the church. Tammara, who was the president of the Kenosha Unified School Board and is the current executive director of the Shalom Center, seemed to deny even knowing Russell. KCE later learned that not only does she know him, but he is her brother-in-law. Russell is married to her sister.
After being confronted with this news, she still denied knowledge of the alleged sexual assaults, but admitted she knew her brother-in-law, but told KCE “knowing someone and knowing their personal business is very different…And sir, the behavior of people I may or may not know do not define me, nor my character!” She wouldn’t tell us why she misled us initially and said she was calling her lawyer. Tamarra reportedly helped her brother-in-law Russell obtain a job at the Kenosha Unified School District in September of 2013.
(Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
The Kenosha Unified School district was notified of the allegations about the sexual assaults at the Illinois church in 2021. According to law enforcement records, the HR department kept an eye on Russell and told him not to allow any students to be in his Internet Technology room alone with him. A fellow employee of the High School, however, said that the School’s principal, Scott Kennow wouldn’t enforce this rule, and allowed Russell to have students alone in his room anyway. Russell assigned several girls to be his Teacher’s Assistants (TA’s) even though he didn’t have authority to do this. Principal Kennow also didn’t cooperate with the law enforcement investigation in Kenosha. He wouldn’t answer detectives’ questions. Current Superintendent, Jeff Weiss (D), wouldn’t tell us why he is so weak on sexual assault and harassment allegations in the district. This is the third similar allegation lately.
KUSD’s inaction would lead to two more young girls at the school being allegedly assaulted by Russell. According to the police report, a 17-year-old student reported that in November and December of 2022, Russell touched her breast in his office. He would also consistently touch her waist, and lower back. He called her sweetie. She reported that Russell would frequent cheerleading practice, although his job had nothing to do with that. She was concerned because of the revealing outfits the cheerleaders wore. She felt uncomfortable.
Another 17-year-old student reported that during the winter formal, Russell touched her above her breast and caressed her thigh where her dress had an opening. He asked if she “was 18 yet”. He wanted to go to the after-dance party with her but said he couldn’t because she wasn’t 18. She also reported other unusual incidents like him buying snacks for her and him telling her to take off his shirt.
The law enforcement investigation also discovered that Russell would messages other under-age students on Facebook and ask questions such as, “How’d you sleep last night?” He offered her $100 but she didn’t take it, so he gave it to another female student.
(File Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
Kenosha Police Detectives briefed Kenosha Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Smathers about the two allegations of sexual assault. Smathers, who is being sued for defamation, declined to issue charges and told police to close the case. Russell wasn’t even charged with disorderly conduct. Nothing. Was asked Kenosha County DA Michael Graveley why and he didn’t immediately have the details.
Russell lawyered up and hired criminal defense attorney Brian Dimmer. He refused to answer questions from the police during the investigation.
KCE spoke to parents of some of the Kenosha-area alleged victims and were told they plan to sue the district for negligence.
KUSD spokesperson Tanya Ruder asked KCE to not “paint the district and/or district staff in a negative light” We politely refused.
69 Responses
You might wanna go back and proofread this article. In one spot you have the word because spelled wrong and in another spot you have he dress instead of her dress.
Hi kim, thank you so much for pointing out my spelling errors. I will fix them right away
Honestly I knew something was off about him especially at one of my homecomings he was overly to nice or a bit inappropriate with his comments towards female students attending the dance. As well as doing way to much or overstepping his boundaries as a IT professional. Glad I made sure to stay away from him
Seriously, that’s all of have to say! How petty of you!! Obviously you have too much time on your hands if that’s all you care about!! ?
It should all you care about too!
It should be all you care about too! What about the children who’s life’s he has interrupted and destroyed.
??Respectfully,
Ms. Woodward, that could have been addressed in an email. Just think of how YOU would have felt had it been YOUR article. “Pleasant words are as a honeycomb….”
Dats Bible!
Preach!!
-Jackie Houston
You are publicly correcting spelling or typographical errors and the third word in your sentence is “wanna”?
What???????
Hiring Dimmer is smartest thing this clown has ever done. It’s amusing he hired the same firm Rittenhouse did. Next stop for Russell; Parkside professor. Remember they ran Jimmy P out of town after he was doing stuff with the “girls” at Wilmot! Nothing is ever done when the groomers are in charge. Pedophilia is part of the liberal DNA.
From what I’ve heard, Dimmer left Richards office in Spring of 2023.
God Bless You Kevin for calling out these disgusting pedophiles and groomers out in the open who KUSD continually hides from the public.
The District Attorney also failed to act against the monster who trafficked Chrystul Kizer and other teenaged girls. People need to be outraged.
Begs the question: Why? Why is the DA so soft on these kinds of crimes? Would be interesting what the Feds might find if they looked into him.
Breaking News Alert!!!! The feds are corrupt!!! Wake the fuck up!!!
they are his friends, plain and simple
Looking back at recent activity of the D.A. and his cronies it sure seems like they have their priorities back assward! Unacceptable and the community needs to scream for sweeping changes!
We need a new DA.
Smathers should be fired she is incompetent as a ADA as well as a human being.
You sick bastard!!! How can you write such lies? Russell has been nothing like you portrayed. In the 10 years I have known him, I have personally witnessed Mr. Russell tell students that they could not come into the Technology Office. Furthermore, I have first person knowledge of one of the students being overheard saying that she “lied to get Mr. Russell in trouble”. Lastly Mr. Russell resigned from KUSD on May 3, 2023. I SAW THE LETTER. Only scum like you would engage on such a “seek and destroy mission” against a good person who genuinely cared about students. Some “Christian” you are! And KUSD is a P.O.S. For giving out personnel information. I can’t wait to retire and leave this district.
michael lied to you “sweetie” because in Nogo he’s known as a creep and my family has known he 20+ years
why would a student just want to get Michael is trouble. Let alone two students, let alone three young ladies . not everyone is lying on this man
You sound like a “paycheck,” “summers off” type of teacher since you’re counting down the days to retirement and would believe Russell over the students. I hope they discover who you are and look into your ethics.
I guess name calling is something they taught you in that church you belong to.
Open your eyes and ears. These allegations are not new they stem back to numerous employment allegations and dismissals from Lake County, Il. What your name calling because you’re looking like a dumb fool right about now! RECOGNIZE
You may need to fact check your 10 years of knowing Michael Russell is a true predator and like a predator they hide in plain sight. Check your fact miss or Mr Christian stop protecting the pedophile.
It’s good that you are none of this because you don’t know what you’re talking about he is everything that they say he is and some more he is a pedophile him and his family should be in jail no not just jail prison and you should be with them because if you’re talking about that you got to be a family member trying to say something good about this idiot that has been a pedophile in Lake County and in Kenosha and every job he’s had he’s been fired for because of sexual harassment so you can take whatever you got to say is stick it in your butt because you are just as much a pedophile as he is do you woman or man
Open your eyes and ears. These allegations are not new they stem back to numerous employment allegations and dismissals from Lake County, Il. What your name calling because you’re looking like a dumb fool right about now! RECOGNIZE
Nice try, Mr. Russell, but we know it’s you. Methinks thou dost protest too much.
As a retired educator I’ve personally seen a pedophile in sheep’s clothing! They come across as everyone’s best buddy while sinking their fangs into innocent children. “Truth will come out” don’t wait to retire if you’re that convinced he did nothing, protest and leave now! If you’re just waiting to retire, our children suffer your mental and emotional absence!
Bye
Let him babysit your kids.
We can’t wait for you to leave either…Id rather not have someone like you around my kids. Protecting this guy and sticking up for him? It’s YOU that’s sick
I think we’ve just heard from the long- suffering wife, or possibly the side piece. If you actually do work for KUSD, I also look forward to your retirement. Hopefully your replacement will be able to think logically about the idea they are trying to convey and then do so in complete sentences which are carefully proofread.
My guess is Tamarra (and her 2 chins) and Michael love to listen to R Kelly.
I hope these Parents sue the All Parties Involved .
Doesn’t sexual misconduct with a minor count as abuse? The state of Wisconsin requires all teachers as mandatory reporters, to report abuse or neglect. Therefore, all those involved from the board to the superintendent, along with clergy, are accesories to this abuse. Why are these people getting away with this? More and more we see that those in our public, government systems seem to approve of pedophelia and in fact, should all be charged and serve time. Instead, they protect these perverts and may enjoy this perversion as well! Birds of a feather and all that. Trust no one with your children of any age with public authorities.
https://dcf.wisconsin.gov/cps/mandatedreporters
That is an excellent point! Strangely enough they were the who’s who in receiving those abuse/ misconduct reports! They should be held at a much higher level for their inaction and obstruction of police investigations!
The pdf Illinois court case doc isnt uploading for me. Please fix when you can. Thanks
When the Jeff Spencer incident happened at Indian trail. Superintendent Wouldn’t let police officers question students.
Police chief had to call superintendent and tell her to let the police officers do their job. Kusd wanted to cover it up .
Steve knechet hired Jeff Spencer even thou Jeff Spencer admitted to breaking rules at his last job . Knechet owed Jeff’s dad a favor.
He was allowed to resign so he can lie on his resume for his next job smh! He should not be allowed to work in an environment with kids….PERIOD!
My children deserve better, if we need to pay the ridiculous tuition for private school then KSD will have 3 fewer students to collect state and federal funds for!
Do it! We did. KUSD does not respect you, your children or the community. Parents have to take matters into their own hands.
How is it that all of these perverts/predators keep being placed at Indian Trail??? I think that too, needs to be looked into!!
Also how do we get rid of Kennow, since he allowed this predator to be alone with female students?? Lets put St. Martin, the Assistant Principal in charge, as he truly cares about the students at ITA!!
KUSD needs to get their shit together and fire all these predators!!
It all has to do with the ✡️’s and free masons that are the synagogue of Satan that control and fund their special interest groups that carry out genocide and crimes against whites and Christians.
You are in a holy war. You can’t fight if you don’t know who’s attacking you, but now you do.
“Sell your cloak and buy a sword.” -Jesus Christ
Wow! What you say is really messed up. What does this have to do with the Jewish faith? The suspect and his connected family are “devote Christians.” Take your hate elsewhere.
“Heil, mein Führer!” is not welcome here.
Kevin, I am glad that you took down the extremely hateful response that was posted a few minutes ago to this post. Thank you.
Take your Loxism, pornography, pedophilia, wars, back to your terrorist state that occupies land you stole from the Palestinians and get out of my country.
The pedo is a Christian too so maybe clean house before you declare a holy war.
Where are the women’s rights groups at .. ?????
Don’t they SAY they protect women and **girls** ……. ?????
Hmmmm.
So Smathers, how is it you simply chose not to charge this guy? How about directing the KPD detectives to dig deeper instead of barring this mess! Are you somehow convinced these kids are liars? You’re really in the business of conspiring to ruin people on the front edge of investigation sexual assaults of children! People we desperately need to protect the innocent victims of monsters like Russell!
Once again if your Black you can slither your way around situations due to the race card ..Lock his ass up .. But with our DA . He might be working for him after this ..
Tamarra has always had character issues!
The Illinois document is a civil lawsuit. Has this come to trial yet? maybe I missed that part of the article. From reading the allegations in the Illinois civil suit, Illinois should also be prosecuting a felony….this is insane .
Someone addressed this in the previous article in the comments. There is a criminal case that is pending in Lake County, IL against Russell in the Pandemic. Russell’s brother is a sheriff in Lake County and Russell knows many people within the community because of his father-in-law’s church. I would be willing to bet the civil lawsuit was only created because they wanted to “hush it and make it go away” or they kept the case in limbo.
Mt Sinai should have protected that young woman when they heard of the allegations and Colemen shouldn’t have given him a job at KUSD knowing all that she knew.
The school system and the church failed to protect these young girls
The comment delete button is hot today. New moderator or a change in policy? Maybe redact that article about not deleting comments.
No moderation still. Although this is my website. Well I will not and have never moderated views, there are over things that I will take down once I see, like pornography, racial or ethnic slurs, or anything else that I deem distracting.
You need to really consider people having set usernames. It gets way too confusing with all of the anonymous authored posts. You don’t ever know who is replying to who.
^ THIS PERSON MUST BE RELATED OR FRIENDS WITH RUSSELL.
Why did you post with a username?
didn’t
All of this back and forth with nothing ever changing is the distraction. Our country has not been invaded, it has been infiltrated from the top to the bottom at all levels. By those that are less than 2% of the population. Kind of like a parasite.
Everyone knows there is something wrong but nobody can figure it out. It’s a great mystery to the lost sheep. But, when you finally do figure it out , don’t tell anyone because you will be deleted and labeled by terms they make up to protect their agenda while the silent war continues against you and those you tried to awaken.
Your articles are like a doctors diagnosis telling the patient what’s wrong. “Here is the cancer!.” All the readers want to learn of the cancer and kill the cancer/symptom rather than the cause. The money as you know is in treating symptoms, not the cause. That’s why you were banned on FB with Kenosha Guard, you were going to show the entire country the cure! The political system is no different as you know first hand. They labeled and deleted you. Perhaps you didn’t know why but now you do. You and KR showed the masses what one courageous person could do to stop their agenda. It’s so clear.
They silence those with the cures for medicine too.
Feel free to delete knowledge on how the disease operates, why it spreads and stay focused on the symptoms.
Its your site and at the end of the day, I respect that.
Never lose site of the cure even if it’s not popular with ZuckerBERG or those that want truth deleted on your own site. Pornography is more accepted than truth, sad.
Yes, Let him babysit your kids.
Obviously there’s a major gap at KUSD and why does lightning strike twice at Indian Trail?
A correction, though, in the headline. It was three teenage girls. Not that the accurate information makes the conduct any more acceptable — it doesn’t — but it should still be accurate.
Crazy part is this type of stuff and crazier happens at the shalom center that she is running. KUSD is a joke with this type of behavior. A student was sexually assaulted at brass this past school year and principal said he “didn’t want to jam up a 6 year old boy”
Why isn’t Scott Kennow in trouble?!
He obviously knew the allegations. He’s not protecting our children.
Since this happened over a year ago I am wondering if there any updates? Did he go to jail?
Has Russell been tried and convicted yet? Any follow ups on the case?