Just four days before a judge dismissed felony charges against Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s brother Allen Addison because an essential witness was not available, Addison violated GPS requirements that he stay out of a zone around shooting victim Eddie Knox’s house, records obtained exclusively by Wisconsin Right Now show.
Court records identify the essential witness as a neighbor of Knox.
Court records also show that Addison was warned that a violation could result in his immediate arrest and could have resulted in a charge of bail jumping. “YOU MUST NOT DISREGARD THIS ORDER,” the records show.
Yet there is no record of a bail jumping charge being filed against Addison, instead, Judge David Feiss dismissed all criminal charges against him.
We asked the DA’s office why Addison was not charged with bail jumping; they did not immediately respond.
In January, a person named H.W. was identified as “the essential witness” of the state, when it was determined she was not available to testify that month due to being out of the state, which prosecutors verified with a travel itinerary.
She lives just a few houses down from Knox and is described in the criminal complaint as a neighbor. Both live in the 3500 block of N. 11th St. Court records for the GPS violation, which list Addison as non-compliant, include a map that shows he got within five houses of H.W.’s home.
“Mr. Addison was ordered to have absolutely no contact and remain at least 500 feet away from EJK, including their residence…JusticePoint has reviewed with Mr. Addison his No Contact Order, including the exclusion zone via map. On May 26, 2023, Mr. Addison can be tracked traveling through the exclusion zone from 4:25:27 A.M. and 4:28:04 A.M. through West Finn Place and North 11th Street,” the May 26, 2023, JusticePoint report says. EJK is the shooting victim, Eddie Knox, who previously allowed WRN to use his name in an interview.
The judge did not specifically order Addison to have no contact with H.W. or any other witnesses except for Knox, even though the complaint shows that it was H.W. who identified Addison as the driver of the truck allegedly used in the shooting.
The complaint says: “On 1/5/2022, Det. El Gerrith Tucker and Det. William Savagian interviewed E.K.’s neighbor, H.W., and showed her a six-person photo array that contained a photo of defendant Allen Addison. H.W. selected the photo of defendant Addison as the driver of a black pick up truck that she saw heading north after she heard several gunshots. H.W. explained that she did not see the shooting, but saw the side profile of the driver of the black pick up as the truck drove north.”
We previously broke the story that all charges against Addison were dismissed by Judge David Feiss on May 30, 2023, the day that the case was supposed to go to jury trial. Addison, who has previous felony convictions for intimidating a witness, has skated from any accountability for Knox’s shooting, for a felon in possession charge, and for a two-hour high-profile standoff with police. Knox was shot in the head.
Feiss tossed the charges of 1st-degree reckless injury with a dangerous weapon and felon in possession of a firearm without prejudice when the “essential witness did not appear” in the long-languishing case, which had gone through multiple delays and a failure by the state to meet a speedy trial demand. No charges resulted from the standoff, which was captured on body cam video.
WRN has figured out H.W.’s full name from a state’s witness list but is not printing it for her privacy. The criminal complaint says that police found casings in Addison’s truck. Her testimony was important because Knox himself could not identify his shooter through tinted windows, the complaint says.
The letter, from JusticePoint GPS Supervision is dated on May 26, 2023, and it’s addressed to Feiss.
The records say that Addison was turned over to JusticePoint on April 1, 2022, for pretrial supervision. The court ordered intensive supervision, electronic monitoring (no contact monitoring only), drug testing, and a “no contact order with EJK. JusticePoint has set a 500-foot radius exclusion zone of EJK’s home address as provided by the District Attorney’s office.” Addison was also ordered to possess no firearms.
On Jan. 24, 2023, Addison was released from custody and placed on GPS supervision. In an earlier letter to the court dated May 19, 2023, JusticePoint wrote that, since his release from custody, Addison had no GPS violations (that changed May 26), kept his scheduled appointments, and was listed as unemployed. Six drug tests were listed as negative.
“Case set for Jury Trial. Defense ready to proceed,” the records say. “State’s essential witness is unavailable. Defense motion to dismiss, argued, and granted by the Court without prejudice. Defendant released from conditions of bail and any bail on deposit to be returned to the poster.” The criminal complaint was filed in January 2022.
Court notes say in January 2023: “Case in court for jury trial. State filed a motion to adjourn due to the essential witness being unavailable. State unable to comply with the speedy trial demand. Defense moved to modify the bail. Arguments heard as to bail. Court modified the defendants bail.” Feiss then modified Addison’s bail to a signature bond.
Court records show that the reason the witness was unavailable previously in January was because the witness was out of the country, which the prosecutor verified with a travel itinerary.
In a previous interview, Knox told WRN that he went to get some dog food, and pulled up on his street when the shooter “pulled up along the side of me and called my name and started shooting.”
He says that he knew “it was Allen” because he had known the 37-year-old man since he was 18. “My son chased him down and got the license plate,” he said, adding that he picked Addison out of a photo lineup. However, the criminal complaint does not contain those details; it says that Knox could not identify Addison for sure because the windows were tinted, and that his son chased him, but it doesn’t mention him getting a license plate. Instead, it mentions the neighbor. The complaint says the motive is tied up in Knox preventing Addison from beating up Addison’s girlfriend in a previous incident.
