Milwaukee police executed a search warrant on a home in the city on August 13, and what they say they found inside has upended the office of the Milwaukee County Clerk of Circuit Court. A senior administrator who worked as a top deputy in that office was arrested, and county officials confirmed she has been suspended from her job pending the outcome of an investigation.
The employee has been identified by local outlet The Heartland Post as Samotria Matthews, who serves as senior administrator in the Clerk of Circuit Court Administrative Office, a top non-elected leadership post under Clerk of Circuit Courts Anna Hodges. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, officers searching the property recovered 1,280 grams of fentanyl and 167.2 grams of cocaine, along with an additional mixture of fentanyl and cocaine weighing about 431.6 grams. The home searched is owned by the county employee, per property records cited in the search warrant.
Investigators also reported finding hydraulic brick presses, drug processing equipment, clear plastic bags, a cutting agent and a gun inside the property, all per the search warrant. The search warrant does not indicate whether the county employee was aware of or actively involved in the drugs found at the residence, the newspaper’s report notes.
A Household Already Under Legal Scrutiny
The case does not begin with the August 13 search. The employee’s spouse was already on active supervision at the time, according to the search warrant, and had fled police during an incident on March 6. That spouse was arrested on August 11, two days before the search of the home, after a police chase, the same account states. Charges against the employee and two family members remain under review, the Journal Sentinel reports…