A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the City of Cedarburg, Police Chief Mike McNerney, Detective Dustin Koehler and 10 John Doe police officers by a woman who was arrested for running a drug house — charges that were later dropped.
A story that appeared in the Nov. 6 2025 issue of the Cedarburg News Graphic detailed the court ruling. According to the story:
Mary Lubner filed her suit in Wisconsin Eastern District Court in March 2024, claiming that her fourth and 14th amendments were violated, that police were negligent in arresting her and that police were negligent in their training and supervising. The suit said she suffered emotional and financial damages, such as damage to her reputation, loss of employment and employment opportunities. She had asked for compensatory and punitive damages in an amount to be determined by the jury.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Dries dismissed the case in mid-October, ruling in part that qualified immunity protected Koehler from liability. Qualified immunity protects state and local officials, including law enforcement officers, from individual liability unless the official violated a clearly established constitutional right.
In March of 2022, Lubner’s son, Erich, and his friend were living with Lubner in her Linden Street home. Erich Lubner, 40, has had numerous arrests and convictions for drug-related crimes and testified during one of his mother’s hearings that he hid the drugs from his mother.
Erich Lubner’s friend was reportedly homeless and allowed to stay with the Lubners. In March 2022, a Tennessee police department alerted Cedarburg police that they intercepted a delivery of fentanyl and methamphetamine that was intended to be sent to the Lubner home, addressed to Erich Lubner’s friend, McNerney said.
When Cedarburg police went to the home with a search warrant, they found thousands of syringes, baggies containing marijuana, vials of Narcan, heroin residue and other related paraphernalia, according to the criminal complaints against the Lubners.
Police arrested Erich Lubner and his friend, but released Mary Lubner. They were later directed by Ozaukee County Assistant District Attorney Antonella Aleman-Zientek to arrest Mary Lubner, according to emails obtained by a News Graphic open records request.
Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol then got involved, emailing Police Chief Mike McNerney on March 18, 2022, asking him why he wouldn’t arrest Mary Lubner. Tense emails were exchanged by the two, and Lubner was eventually arrested by the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office.
But Mary Lubner’s case was dismissed June 30 after nearly a dozen hearings or court appearances.
In her lawsuit, Lubner argued that she had called the police in the past and asked them to search for drugs and had petitioned Ozaukee County Circuit Court for a domestic abuse injunction claiming Erich was using drugs and requested that he be banned from her residence.
The suit said that, as a part of obtaining the warrant, Koehler and other Cedarburg officers informed the district attorney that drugs and paraphernalia were located “all over” the home. Mary Lubner had said that her son spent most of his time in the basement and mobility issues kept her from going into the basement.
The lawsuit said that because of her arrest, Mary Lubner was terminated or separated from at least three separate local volunteer organizations based on these false drug charges, and one of them she served with for over 30 years.
She said the police misrepresented or omitted information regarding the person committing the crime, and made an unreasonable and ineffective search and seizure. The suit said that the city’s policies, customers or practices posed a substantial risk to Lubner.
The city, McNerney and the other defendants asked for a summary judgment, court judgment for one party against another without a full trial.
Dries ruled that the warrant was based on accurate information. He said no facts show Koehler presented misleading evidence, particularly in the case of a supplemental report that said the basement had common areas where Mary Lubner would have walked through regularly to the laundry area and, in walking from the steps into that area, would have noticed the paraphernalia and drug use.
Lubner said that used speculation, but Dries ruled it would be speculative to assume a homeowner didn’t regularly walk through a common area to use the laundry.
Dries also dismissed other arguments in which Lubner claimed her Fourth Amendment rights were violated. He concluded by saying that qualified immunity shields Koehler from liability and that it shields the other defendants from liability on Lubner’s other remaining claims. He also said that Lubner failed to name the John Doe defendants.
