Marine Sgt. Todd Wagner Was Named as Tom Siver’s Investigator. Allegan County Says Two Reports on the Case Don’t Exist.

Sources say she moved out four days after the collision. They say Marine Sgt. Todd Wagner closed the accident complaint that same day without taking her statement. Requests for additional reports remain pending.

The Collision

The report is Allegan County Sheriff’s Office complaint 11474-23, a standard Michigan Department of Natural Resources boating accident form. It documents a collision at 4:30 p.m. on June 9, 2023, at Lake 16 in Martin Township, roughly 75 yards south of a residence on 120th Avenue. Two personal watercraft were on the water together. According to the narrative section, the riders were cruising and jumping each other’s wakes when the second rider lost track of the first and turned into his path. The first PWC struck the second on its starboard side. The rider on the second craft was thrown into the water. She suffered bruising and a laceration and was transported by the other rider to Ascension Borgess Allegan Hospital for treatment. Neither watercraft was disabled. The report notes both PWCs had been purchased within the previous ten days by Tom Siver and had not yet been registered. No arrest was made. Under “Complaint Closed by,” the form is signed “Marine Sgt. Todd Wagner,” with the disposition marked service rendered.

Who the Report Blames

The cause section of the report checks two boxes: operator negligence and operator inexperience. The narrative makes clear whose negligence and inexperience the department means:

Vessel 1 was Siver’s, and he was piloting it. Vessel 2 was also his, registered in his name, with his then-girlfriend riding it. Both operators are marked on the form with the identical experience bracket: twenty to one hundred hours. The report does not check a fault box against Siver, the owner-operator whose watercraft struck the other. It checks two against the woman he struck.

The Officer Who Closed It

Allegan County’s own website answers the identity question before Clutch Justice has to. The Sheriff’s Office lists Sgt. Todd Wagner as its Marine Administrator, the contact for boater safety courses taught by the department’s marine deputies. That is the same name and the same title category attached to this file.

Greene and Wagner are not strangers brought together by one report. An Allegan County Sheriff’s Office annual report lists both men among officers who received Certificates of Excellence. That is normal professional overlap inside a small department, and it proves nothing improper on its own. It does establish that Greene was not working in isolation from the marine sergeant who closed his complaint.

What the record does establish is a division between the two names on the page: one deputy received the report, and a different officer, a marine sergeant with administrative authority over the unit, is the one who signed off on closing it as resolved.

The Church Connection

First Congregational Church of Allegan’s own staff page lists Todd Wagner as its current pastor. Wagner’s own LinkedIn profile fills in the rest of the timeline with dates he supplied himself. He joined the church’s Board of Trustees in July 2016 and served there through December 2024, eight and a half years. In January 2021, the same month his full-time law enforcement career ended, he became chairman of the church’s Board of Deacons, a position he held through December 2024. That four-year span covers the entire period surrounding the June 2023 accident: Wagner was the church’s sitting deacon board chairman, not a rank-and-file member with a years-old membership date, when he closed the file. He was named Senior Pastor starting in December 2024, per his own LinkedIn, a year earlier than the December 2025 date suggested by the church’s own site. Clutch Justice is using the earlier, LinkedIn date: it is the date Wagner supplied about himself, and it is the less favorable one for him, since it lengthens rather than shortens the overlap in question. He separately completed a bachelor’s degree in Integrated Ministry Studies at Moody Bible Institute between October 2021 and May 2024. The church’s ministry includes the Congregational Kitchen, a food pantry program.

Wagner’s ACSO record on the same profile: Patrol Sergeant, full-time, June 1993 to January 2021, twenty-seven years and eight months, supervising a shift of road patrol deputies and the department’s dive team. He did not leave the department. Two months after his full-time retirement, in March 2021, he began the part-time Marine Administrator role that put him over the marine unit that handled Siver’s 2023 accident.

Siver’s own 2026 judicial campaign mailer lists that same Congregational Kitchen under a “Community Involvement” section, with a photo of Siver serving food at the church. His campaign website carries the same material further, publishing multiple photographs under a gallery labeled “The Soup Kitchen, Allegan.” Neither the mailer nor the website mentions Wagner, the 2023 accident, or the Sheriff’s Office by name. Clutch Justice has not yet independently corroborated Wagner’s LinkedIn dates with contemporaneous church records. The church itself confirms he served four years as a deacon and three years as chair, but its current staff page does not give the exact years, and this is the subject of further reporting, along with the Congregational Kitchen’s own leadership: the church identifies a separate director for that program, distinct from Wagner, running a network described as roughly seventy volunteers distributing food through about thirty pantries across five counties.

Siver’s mailer also lists a second volunteer role, at “VFW Wayland,” and his campaign website separately publishes photos labeled simply “The VFW.” Michigan VFW records identify Wayland as Post 7581. Clutch Justice looked for a public connection between Wagner or Greene and that post and found none. It is included here because a fair accounting of this piece means naming the leads that did not go anywhere, not only the ones that did.

Four Days Later: She Moved Out, and the First Report Was Closed

Clutch Justice has learned that she was told Marine Sgt. Todd Wagner would investigate the case. Sources say she moved out of the residence she shared with Siver on June 13, 2023, four days after the collision, with a deputy sent to help her retrieve her belongings after she told the department she was afraid of him.

According to those sources, Wagner closed the first report that same day without ever taking a statement from her. The accident report identifies Wagner as the officer who closed complaint 11474-23 as “service rendered” and contains no interview narrative from the injured woman. The June 13 closure date and the account that he never took her statement are attributed to sources; the requested supervisory records and audit trail remain pending.

The timing matters: according to these accounts, the department was helping her leave the shared residence while its marine sergeant closed the collision complaint without obtaining her statement. Whether those responses were coordinated, and what information Wagner considered before closing the file, remain unanswered questions.

Clutch Justice has requested the Marine Division’s staffing rosters for 2021 through 2023, Wagner’s post-retirement employment or appointment status with the department, the record showing who assigned complaint 11474-23 to Greene, the supervisory approval and records-management audit trail showing when and how Wagner reviewed and closed it, every supplement and computer-aided dispatch entry tied to the file, any communications between Greene, Wagner, and Siver between June 9 and June 13, 2023, and the department policy in effect in 2023 governing injury boating accidents, victim and witness interviews, and supervisory closure.

A Separate Lake Account and the Question of Marine Oversight

A source who lives across the lake from Siver, whom Clutch Justice is not naming at the source’s request, described a separate alleged incident months after the June 9 collision.

This account raises a further question about the Marine Division Wagner administered during the period surrounding the collision: whether the alleged later complaint reached him, what response was documented, and who reviewed its disposition. His supervisory role makes those questions relevant. It does not, by itself, establish that he personally handled or closed that complaint.

The reporting now concerns three separate matters involving Siver: the documented injury collision, the source-reported move-out assistance four days later, and the unverified account of a later watercraft complaint. The collision file records no arrest and a closure by Wagner. Sources say he closed it on the day she moved out without taking her statement. The outcomes and supervisory handling of the other matters remain unresolved. Clutch Justice’s FOIA requests for additional reports are pending.

Michigan Law Requires Life Jackets on Personal Watercraft

Michigan’s life-jacket requirement is mandatory. Under MCL 324.80205(1)–(2), a person may not operate a personal watercraft unless everyone aboard is wearing the required personal flotation device; inflatable devices do not qualify. The Michigan DNR’s guidance confirms that each rider must wear an approved Type I, II, or III life jacket. For ordinary recreational riding, having one available on the craft does not satisfy the requirement to wear it.

The Personal Watercraft Act’s general penalty provision, MCL 324.80219, makes violations a misdemeanor unless otherwise specified, punishable by up to 90 days in jail, a fine of up to $100, or both. The life-jacket requirement is enforceable independently of any allegation of drinking.

Alcohol raises a separate issue. MCL 324.80176 prohibits operating a motorboat while under the influence, with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent or higher, or while visibly impaired by alcohol or controlled substances. It also prohibits an owner or person in control from authorizing or knowingly permitting operation by someone under the influence or at the statutory alcohol threshold. An allegation that someone was drinking, by itself, does not establish those elements.

If the reported life-jacket conduct occurred, it describes a potential statutory violation even without proof of intoxication. The unresolved questions are what the responding deputy observed, what witnesses reported, whether a warning or citation was issued, and who reviewed the response. The source’s secondhand understanding that no action followed remains unverified. Pending FOIA responses are needed before the article can state that no charges or citations resulted or attribute that outcome to Wagner.

Where the Files Overlap

Myrene Koch was Allegan County’s prosecutor throughout this period. Clutch Justice has separately reported that Siver, while privately representing the family of Joseph Maverick Nagle after a fatal 2022 officer-involved shooting, exchanged evidence directly with Michigan State Police investigators and with Koch’s office, and that Koch declined to charge the deputy involved in September 2022. The same prosecutor’s office held authority over any charges arising from Siver’s own 2023 boating accident, the file Wagner closed with no charge and no interview narrative from the woman he struck.

The overlap reaches into Siver’s current campaign. Jason Watts, now working on Siver’s judicial campaign, previously worked on Koch’s reelection campaign. Koch lost that race. What, if anything, that shared campaign history means for how either matter was handled is not established by any record Clutch Justice has reviewed. It is a name that now appears in two places.

Clutch Justice has forwarded this reporting, in full, to the Allegan County Prosecutor’s Office and formally requested an independent investigation. That office is now led by Mike Villar, who took office in January 2025 after defeating incumbent Myrene Koch in the 2024 primary.

Related reporting: The Pattern Around Tom Siver: A Family He Controlled, a Client He Abandoned, and a Campaign That Won’t Disclose Until It’s Too Late, Clutch Justice, September 14, 2026.

What This Raises

The combined accounts suggest that the concerns involving Siver extended beyond a single boating collision, and raise the question of how much Wagner knew before he closed the first report. Sources say the injured woman moved out with a deputy’s assistance on June 13, four days after the collision, after telling the department she was afraid of Siver. They say Wagner closed the collision complaint that same day without ever taking her statement. If those accounts are accurate, the department was responding to a further concern involving the same people while its marine administrator was closing the injury file.

The later lake account adds an allegation that neighbors observed another boating-safety concern and that one called the Sheriff’s Office. That account remains secondhand and unverified. It raises a concrete question about witness follow-up: who had information, which deputies received it, and did it reach Wagner? Multiple people potentially holding relevant information is not the same as proof that Wagner interviewed them or was told what they knew.

The concern is whether repeated reports involving Siver reached the department without meaningful investigative follow-through. Wagner’s documented closure and the source-reported timing support scrutiny of his knowledge and decisions. They do not yet establish that he personally knew about every complaint or took no action on all of them. Clutch Justice’s pending FOIA requests seek the additional reports, communications, and supervisory records needed to determine what he knew, when he knew it, and what he did in response.

None of this proves that Wagner’s church relationship with Siver factored into how the 2023 file was handled. It raises the question directly, and it is a fair one. A marine sergeant with a documented, years-long relationship to a man through their shared church was specifically named in advance as the case’s investigator. The file he ultimately signed contains no interview narrative from the woman Siver struck, no charge, and a disposition of service rendered. Her advocate says a department employee told her that two additional reports do not exist. Clutch Justice’s FOIA requests for additional reports remain pending; their existence and contents have not yet been independently established. It sits alongside a separate, already-documented pattern: the same county prosecutor who cleared a deputy in an unrelated shooting after exchanging evidence with Siver directly held authority over this file too, and a name from her own losing campaign now works Siver’s. The documented closure, the source accounts, and the unresolved records questions deserve answers in writing. Sources place her move-out and Wagner’s closure on the same date, June 13, and say he never took her statement. The pending records requests seek to establish the full sequence and the basis for that closure.

The County’s Own Description of the Job

The Sheriff’s Office Marine / Boater’s Safety page identifies Sgt. Todd Wagner as Marine Administrator and describes marine deputies’ responsibilities as responding to water emergencies, enforcing marine laws and local watercraft restrictions, and investigating boating accidents. It also describes safety instruction covering personal watercraft and flotation devices. These functions are part of the department’s own public description of its work.

The same page links to a Michigan Boating Laws Handbook and a Recreational Boating Safety Facts sheet. Although the resource list labels the fact sheet “2021,” the document expressly uses U.S. Coast Guard statistics for 2019. It reports that approximately 86 percent of people who drowned in boating incidents were not wearing life jackets and that alcohol was the leading known contributing factor in fatal boating accidents, accounting for 23 percent of deaths where the primary cause was known. These are historical national figures, not Allegan County statistics or findings about the incidents described here.

The county publicly recognizes both the risks and the Marine Division’s responsibility to address them. That makes it reasonable to examine whether the response to the injury collision, and any subsequent boating complaint that reached Wagner, matched the department’s stated responsibilities. The public webpage does not establish what Wagner knew about each incident, what the operative 2023 policies required, or whether a particular enforcement action was mandatory. Those questions require the pending records and an independent review.

Could This Raise Misconduct-in-Office or Willful-Neglect Questions?

A collision that injured a rider badly enough to require hospital treatment makes the adequacy of the department’s response a concrete public-safety question. Sources say Wagner closed that complaint four days later without taking her statement, on the same day a deputy helped her leave the shared residence. If further complaints about unsafe watercraft use subsequently reached him, an independent review should determine whether he addressed a known, recurring risk and fulfilled his investigative and supervisory duties.

Failure to obtain relevant accounts can leave an injury investigation incomplete. Failure to document subsequent complaints can prevent supervisors and prosecutors from assessing recurring conduct. If substantiated, those failures could support departmental findings concerning investigation, documentation, or supervision even if the evidence does not establish a crime by an officer. Which duties applied here must be established from the governing law, assignments, and department policies in effect at the time.

Michigan recognizes criminal misconduct in office involving corrupt conduct in the exercise of public office. People v. Coutu (On Remand), 235 Mich App 695 (1999), explains that purposeful wrongdoing concerning official duties can establish corrupt intent; personal financial gain or a quid pro quo is not required. Honest mistakes and good-faith errors do not meet that standard. Common-law offenses not otherwise expressly punished by statute may be prosecuted under MCL 750.505, which provides a maximum of five years’ imprisonment, a $10,000 fine, or both.

For an allegation centered on a failure to act, MCL 750.478 is particularly relevant: it makes willful neglect of a duty imposed by law a misdemeanor, where no special punishment otherwise applies, carrying up to one year in jail or a $1,000 fine. In People v. Waterstone, 296 Mich App 121 (2012), the court held that the statutory willful-neglect offense governed the charged omissions rather than the common-law felony. An allegation of nonperformance therefore cannot simply be labeled felony misconduct without examining the applicable statute and the precise conduct.

The absence of charges alone does not establish misconduct. The review must distinguish decisions about investigation, citations, supervisory closure, and referral from a prosecutor’s charging decision. A welfare escort does not itself establish an underlying crime. Nor does the current reporting establish three completed reports personally reviewed by Wagner: it identifies three matters with different levels of verification, and the FOIA requests for additional reports remain pending.

The records needed to evaluate possible misconduct include the complaints and dispatch entries; what witnesses told deputies; what information reached Wagner and when; the legal duties and supervisory requirements that applied; the reasons for closure or non-referral; and any communications showing deliberate avoidance of a required duty or preferential treatment. The present record supports asking for that review. It does not yet establish that Wagner committed misconduct in office or willful neglect of duty.

Timeline