Blame unclear as Milwaukee County sergeant charged with producing child porn

CREATED May. 14, 2012 - UPDATED: May. 14, 2012

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MILWAUKEE- A Milwaukee County sheriff's sergeant faces a slew of child porn charges and FBI investigators believe he did some of the crimes on county computers.

TODAY'S TMJ4 investigated to see who is responsible for making sure this didn't happen on county time.

And at the end of the day, TODAY'S TMJ4 got different answers about who is responsible for monitoring what county employees do on the Internet.

Prosecutors believe Sgt. Phil Wentzel used several online accounts to distribute child porn.  That news is disturbing to county supervisor Mark Borkowski.  "It's bad enough that it happens at people's homes, but to come to a building like this is ridiculous because this is the people's building," argued Borkowski.

County employees sign an Internet policy stating they have no right to privacy.  And IMSD -- the information management services department has oversight.

So, how did Wentzel's alleged porn-related chats, fly under the radar?

"We don't oversee Internet usage for county employees, but what we do is that we have technologies in place that block inappropriate sites," said Laurie Parnell of information management services.

Parnell claims Wentzel was blocked and that it's the sheriff's office job to monitor its employees Internet use.  But the sheriff's office told a different story.

"We would rely on our IT department in the county, because we don't have access to an search history of our employees computers," said Fran McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Milwaukee County sheriff's office.

Supervisor Borkowski argues employees are trusted to keep it clean, but in light of the allegations against Wentzel, he says it's time for a talk about checks and balances.

"IMSD, we all need to sit down and say, OK why did this happen and how do we prevent it," said Supervisor Borkowski.  "And I'm not sure what the easy answers are, if there are easy answers."

Sgt. Phil Wentzel has resigned from the department.