Biglaw Boys Up To No Good

A reader brought our attention to this disturbing story out of the Midwest, which we hadn’t heard about previously. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Nobody but the two Chicago men and the woman from Berlin knows for certain exactly what happened at the private boat landing on Green Lake in early morning of Aug. 7, 2005.

The 29-year-old woman says the two men — then both attorneys at prominent Chicago law firms — held her down on the hood of her car and cheered each other on as they repeatedly raped her.

The two men say what happened was consensual sex.

The undisputed facts after that night, from the bail amounts and the plea bargains to the minimal sentences and the district attorney’s resignation, have some locals in this small tourist town 30 miles west of Fond du Lac wondering if justice was served or if two big-city attorneys got a “good-ole-boy” break.

“Something doesn’t look right,” said Jaime Brotz, a 10-year resident of the Berlin area. “I think they got away with a lot more than they should have.”

Find out which firms these defendants worked for, after the jump.


The defendants — Stephan Addison (left), 28, of Medinah, Ill., and Benjamin Butler (right), 29, of Chicago — received light sentences. They were initially charged with sexual assault, but the charges were reduced to reckless endangerment of safety and sexual gratification in public, pursuant to a plea deal.
At sentencing, Addison was ordered to serve 500 hours of community service and 30 days in jail with work release. Butler received a sentence of 300 hours of community service.
Addison and Butler graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 2004. They previously worked at Seyfarth Shaw and Schiff Hardin, respectively.
Firm spokespersons told the Journal Sentinel that Butler and Addison no longer work at these firms. Does anyone know where they are now?
Justice served or shunned? [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
Stephan W. Addison profile [Seyfarth Shaw / Google Cache]
Benjamin C. Butler profile [Schiff Hardin / Google Cache]

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