Clutch Justice has covered the Casey Wagner case since before his February 2026 arrest. This publication broke the Ionia Township attorney email story in July 2025 and reported on the Sergeant-at-Arms warning issued to a constituent who questioned Rep. Gina Johnsen in March 2026. The reporter has personal knowledge of and direct relationships with Lois LaRoe and Greg Sipka. Text messages reviewed by Clutch Justice form part of the documented record cited in this piece. All characterizations of Rep. Johnsen’s conduct are drawn from that documented record. All criminal allegations against Casey Wagner remain allegations; the federal case has not been adjudicated.
This is an open letter to Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, addressed publicly because the public has a stake in the answer. Rep. Pohutsky has called for Heidi Washington’s resignation. That call is warranted. But the Casey Wagner case has a second legislative thread that has not been pulled, and a 65-year-old woman named Lois LaRoe lost her hearing while that thread was left sitting on the floor. Rep. Gina Johnsen knew. The record says so. This letter asks Rep. Pohutsky to make sure the investigation goes where the record points.
Rep. Gina Johnsen (R-78th District) received documented notification in September 2024 that Ionia Township’s noise ordinance was enforceable against Wagner. She took no action to protect her constituent Lois LaRoe.
Text messages reviewed by Clutch Justice show Johnsen discouraged constituents from contacting the Michigan Attorney General about Wagner, framing it as a political liability rather than a public safety matter.
After a private meeting with Wagner and his family, Johnsen’s posture toward LaRoe shifted. She subsequently pressured LaRoe to sell her home to an unidentified buyer whose identity Johnsen refused to disclose.
Lois LaRoe, 65, has documented hearing loss, PTSD, and over $17,000 in property damage from years of close-range explosions she reported to every available official channel. She is still living with those injuries today.
This letter calls on Rep. Pohutsky to refer Johnsen’s conduct to the House Ethics Committee, call for an oversight hearing on who knew what and when at every level, and ensure the legislative investigation does not close at Washington’s departure.
I am writing to you directly, and publicly, because the situation I am about to describe has been public for long enough that it deserves a public response from someone with the standing to act on it.
You called for Heidi Washington’s resignation this month. You were right to do so. MDOC’s failures under her leadership are documented, and Lois LaRoe’s story, a 65-year-old woman living next door to an armed MDOC arsenal sergeant who detonated explosives near her home for years while officials at every level looked away, is part of that documentation. You described Washington’s approach as callous. That word fits.
But Representative Pohutsky, Washington is not the only official whose conduct in this case needs to be examined. And if the investigation stops at her resignation, the people who enabled what happened to Lois LaRoe will walk away without anyone ever asking them to account for it.
I have been covering the Casey Wagner case since before his February 2026 arrest. Clutch Justice broke the Ionia Township attorney email story in July 2025. We reported on text messages between Rep. Gina Johnsen and constituents in March 2026. I know Lois LaRoe and Greg Sipka personally. I have read the documentation they have preserved. I am telling you that the record on Johnsen’s involvement in this situation is not ambiguous, and it has been sitting in plain view since last year.
I am asking you to pull that thread.
What the Record Shows About Rep. Johnsen
In September 2024, Ionia Township’s own legal counsel, Ronald A. Bultje of Dickinson Wright, sent written notification to then-Township Supervisor Kurt Scheuer and to Rep. Gina Johnsen directly. The subject was the township’s disorderly conduct and noise ordinance. The conclusion was unambiguous: the ordinance was enforceable against Wagner. Johnsen received that notification. No enforcement action followed at the state or local level.
Ionia Township’s own attorney notified both the township supervisor and Rep. Johnsen in September 2024 that the existing noise ordinance was enforceable against Wagner. This was not an interpretation that required further study. It was a legal opinion provided by township counsel that gave local officials a clear path to act. The township did not act. Johnsen did not act. Lois LaRoe continued to live next door to Casey Wagner for months after that notification was sent.
The text messages tell a more complete story. In messages dating to September 2024, reviewed by Clutch Justice, Johnsen characterized the situation involving Wagner not as a public safety matter but as a neighborhood disrespect issue. When a constituent raised the possibility of contacting the Michigan Attorney General, Johnsen discouraged it. Her stated reasoning was political: that Attorney General Dana Nessel would use it against Republicans in the district, that it would become a gun issue rather than a neighbor issue. She was, in documented text, more concerned with the political optics of accountability than with the safety of her constituent.
Johnsen warned that contacting the Attorney General would “blow it up into a gun problem” and that Nessel “hates us.”
Text message content reviewed by Clutch Justice, September 2024, as reported March 12, 2026Then Johnsen met privately with Wagner and his family. The location and the content of that meeting are documented in the record this publication holds and in accounts from people with direct knowledge of what occurred. After that meeting, her posture toward LaRoe changed. She began pressuring LaRoe to sell her home to a buyer whose identity Johnsen refused to reveal. She continued to press the sale even as LaRoe made clear she did not want to leave.
A sitting state legislator received written legal confirmation that her constituent’s neighbor could be held accountable under existing law. She did not act on it. She discouraged other constituents from seeking enforcement through the Attorney General’s office. She met privately with the person causing the harm. She subsequently pressured the injured constituent to sell her home to an unidentified third party. Every one of these actions is documented. None of them have been examined by any official body.
When constituents kept pressing Johnsen for answers after Wagner’s arrest became public, a constituent was warned by the Michigan House Sergeant-at-Arms that repeated contact with the representative’s office could constitute a misdemeanor. No formal complaint was filed and the situation de-escalated, but the use of that institutional mechanism to discourage accountability questions is part of the pattern this letter is asking you to examine.
What Lois LaRoe Lost While Officials Did Nothing
Lois LaRoe is 65 years old. She had lived in her Ionia Township home for nearly two decades before Casey Wagner moved in next door. What followed was years of explosions, high-caliber gunfire at unpredictable hours, property damage, and fear. She described herself to WLNS as a prisoner in her own home. She slept in empty lots to escape the noise. She collected her own evidence because the officials she contacted would not collect it for her.
She contacted the Ionia County Sheriff. She contacted Prosecutor Kyle Butler. She contacted the township. She contacted Rep. Johnsen’s office. She stood before the Ionia County Board of Commissioners in tears in December 2023. The board chairman dismissed her, suggesting he could not understand why anyone would behave that way. It was later reported that the chairman was the grandfather of Wagner’s child.
What Lois has now, after Wagner’s arrest and federal indictment: documented hearing loss, PTSD she is still living with today, and more than $17,000 in property damage. A GoFundMe established by her neighbor Greg Sipka, who attended Wagner’s arraignment and told reporters the evidence was far worse than neighbors had feared, is helping her cover costs that no official accountability process has addressed.
The sheriff said he could not act without catching Wagner in the act. The prosecutor agreed. The township’s own attorney told them that was not correct. Johnsen knew all of this and chose the frame of political inconvenience over constituent protection.
Every official who received Lois LaRoe’s complaints has now been overtaken by events. Wagner is federally indicted. The weapons he stockpiled, the munitions he removed from a state facility, the drugs in his home, are all a matter of public court record. The question that no official body has answered is simpler than any of that: who knew, what did they do with what they knew, and what obligation did they have to a constituent who was being permanently injured while they made other choices?
Clutch Justice has tracked the Casey Wagner case from the first reported disturbances. The full investigation archive, sourced documentation, and prior reporting are available at the link below.
Read the Full Wagner Archive ?You have already demonstrated that you are willing to say the things in public that others in the legislature have avoided saying. You called Washington callous. You said she had not responded to your outreach. You said this was preventable. You were right on all three counts.
I am asking you to apply that same standard to what happened at the legislative level. Washington led a department that failed Lois LaRoe systemically. But Johnsen was Lois’s representative. She had specific, documented knowledge of what was happening. She had a legal opinion in her possession that told her something could be done. She chose not to use it. Then she met with the man causing the harm. Then she pressured his victim to leave her home.
That sequence of conduct does not describe a legislator who was unaware of a problem in her district. It describes a legislator who made active choices about which side of the problem she was on.
I am asking you to do three things:
First: Refer Rep. Gina Johnsen’s conduct in the Casey Wagner matter to the House Ethics Committee for formal review. The documented record, the attorney notification, the text messages, the private meeting, the pressure on LaRoe to sell, and the Sergeant-at-Arms warning to a constituent who asked questions, constitutes a pattern of conduct that warrants examination by that body.
Second: Call for a full oversight hearing that examines who knew what and when, at every level from Ionia Township through the state legislature. The gaps in the response to LaRoe’s years of complaints are not explained by the absence of information. The information existed. The question is what officials chose to do with it.
Third: Ensure that the legislative investigation into MDOC does not close when Heidi Washington’s resignation is accepted, if it is accepted. Wagner was an arsenal sergeant. He removed state weapons and munitions from a secure facility. He had an active addiction to methamphetamine. He had been the subject of neighbor complaints for years. The question of how MDOC’s personnel systems and the conduct of the district’s sitting representative interacted to produce that outcome belongs in the same investigation.
Lois LaRoe is still living with hearing loss and PTSD. She did everything right. She contacted every official she was supposed to contact. The system failed her at every single level, including the level closest to her, the level that had the clearest legal path to act.
You have the standing to make sure that failure is examined. I am asking you to use it.
Respectfully, Rita Williams Founder and Editor, Clutch JusticeInstitutional Forensics Consultant
clutchjustice.com
What You Can Do Right Now
If you read this and believe that Lois LaRoe deserved better, then the most useful thing you can do is make sure this letter reaches the people who can act on it. Share this article. Contact your own lawmakers. Ask them directly whether they think a sitting representative who received documented legal confirmation that her constituent could be protected, and chose not to act, should face any formal review of that conduct.
The lawmakers below are the relevant points of contact. Rep. Pohutsky’s office is the primary ask. The House Ethics Committee and the Speaker’s office are secondary contacts. All contact information below is public.
This investigation needs to go further. Tell your representatives that.
Share this article and contact the offices below. Ask them to support a House Ethics referral for Rep. Johnsen’s conduct and a full oversight hearing on the Casey Wagner case at the legislative level.
Share this article with the caption: “A 65-year-old Michigan woman lost her hearing while her state representative had a legal opinion in hand that could have stopped it. This is what happened. And this is what we’re asking lawmakers to do about it.”
APA 7: Williams, R. (2026, May 22). An open letter to Rep. Laurie Pohutsky: The investigation has a second thread you need to pull. Clutch Justice. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/05/22/open-letter-pohutsky-johnsen-wagner-investigation/
MLA 9: Williams, Rita. “An Open Letter to Rep. Laurie Pohutsky: The Investigation Has a Second Thread You Need to Pull.” Clutch Justice, 22 May 2026, clutchjustice.com/2026/05/22/open-letter-pohutsky-johnsen-wagner-investigation/.
Chicago: Williams, Rita. “An Open Letter to Rep. Laurie Pohutsky: The Investigation Has a Second Thread You Need to Pull.” Clutch Justice, May 22, 2026. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/05/22/open-letter-pohutsky-johnsen-wagner-investigation/.
I map how institutions hide from accountability. That map is what I sell.
When the record exists and officials keep choosing not to read it, that is a pattern. Patterns are what this practice documents.
