An investigator in the City of Neenah’s probe of City Attorney David Rashid disclosed details about a crime victim and drew conclusions that conflicted with a criminal investigation, according to recently released body camera footage.
The story was reported in the Sept. 5, 2025 issue of Neenah News. According to the story:
Rashid, 62, was charged with felony sexual assault in April 2024 and the city placed him on paid administrative leave the same day. He was reinstated in August 2024, following the Neenah investigator’s review, which found “no violations pertaining to matters of the workplace,” according to a press release issued by Mayor Jane Lang.
The city’s handling of the case has raised broader questions about transparency, conflicts of interest and municipal policies in situations where a city employee faces criminal charges.
The city’s disciplinary and grievance policy outlines potential actions for workplace violations but does not specifically address employees facing criminal charges. While the policy does not reference personnel investigations, it allows employees to be placed on paid administrative leave during internal reviews.
Human Resources Director Amy Fairchild said by email last month that “through the course of our personnel investigation and based on the information we have been able to ascertain to date, the city has not found any workplace violations or threats to the workplace given the information currently available.”
City officials have given conflicting descriptions of the investigation itself. The press release from Lang called it an “internal personnel investigation,” while the investigator’s report referred to it as an “internal investigation into the allegations against David Rashid on behalf of Mayor Jane Lang.”
The tip that prompted the criminal charges and the city’s investigation came from an anonymous email sent in August 2023 to the Neenah police chief, mayor and three aldermen by Rashid’s predecessor, Adam Westbrook, who resigned from the city attorney position in July 2022. Rashid was hired to replace Westbrook as city attorney and started a month later.
Westbrook’s email accused Rashid of “domestic abuse and violence” toward his former wife. When questioned by Neenah investigators in May 2024, Westbrook said he received the information from Jacob Boudreau, a former Menasha dog groomer who had groomed dogs belonging to both Rashid and the alleged victim.
After receiving the anonymous email from Westbrook in August 2023, Neenah police referred the information to Appleton police, who conducted a criminal investigation. About eight months later, Rashid was charged with felony sexual assault for three alleged incidents that occurred between 2017 and 2022 during his marriage. The case is being prosecuted by a special prosecutor from Portage County.
Separately, the city of Neenah also launched its own personnel investigation into Rashid’s workplace conduct, led by police investigator Craig Hoffer, which ran from early May through July 11, 2024.
Neenah News obtained the personnel investigation report in April 2025, after multiple open records requests which the city initially denied. Neenah Police also initially refused to release the report to Rashid’s attorneys and the prosecutor in his criminal case, but a December 2024 court order required the records to be turned over.
The personnel investigation report details Hoffer’s interviews or attempted interviews with 15 people, about half of them family members, past romantic partners and acquaintances of the alleged victim.
Two aldermen were among those interviewed, but other elected officials or city staff who work with Rashid were not included in the report.
Last month, Neenah Police released body camera footage from the personnel investigation to Neenah News. The four recordings from three interviews are all the footage police provided in response to a records request for all body camera re- cordings from the investigation. The footage, which cost $140 and took about three months to receive, offers a firsthand look at how the investigation was conducted.
The city’s personnel investigation mirrored the criminal investigation.
“I am doing my own investigation to see if what (the alleged victim) is saying is accurate, inaccurate, whatever, and talking with everybody, basically doing the in- vestigation over again just to make sure that before the city were to dismiss him, this isn’t just a pissed-off (redacted) that’s making things up and that kind of thing …,” Hoffer said in footage.
In July 2024, Hoffer interviewed Kathie Boyette, who was an alderman at the time but did not seek re-election this spring. The interview lasted nearly three hours. In that time, Hoffer discussed details about the alleged victim, including the name of her employer, which was redacted in the body camera video, and her failure to report the alleged sexual assaults to her workplace.
Footage shows Hoffer taking further investigative steps. He suggested that Westbrook may have coached the alleged victim and asked Boyette to make a recorded phone call to Westbrook four times. Boyette did not make the phone call.
In the footage, Hoffer said that if investigators found Westbrook had influenced the victim, “that will clear the city of looking like idiots.” He also told Boyette what his report would conclude even as the investigation was ongoing.
“My report is going to read, I have came up with no other supporting evidence to say that he did this, and that from my training and experience in law enforcement, that I’ve never seen a case where charges were filed, where it was just a per- son’s statement with no other supporting evidence,” he said.
In his report, Hoffer wrote that the case was a “he-said, she-said” situation with no physical or circumstantial evidence to support or disprove the allegations. He concluded that, given the lack of supporting evidence, it was “extremely unlikely that David Rashid would be convicted of the charges that have been filed against him.”
A three-day jury trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 21 in Winnebago County, with Green Lake County Judge Mark Slate presiding.
