As a Dane County Circuit Court judge, Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Jill Karofsky gave a career criminal who faced 40 years in prison just 18 months. As soon as he got out, he became the kingpin of an organized crime ring.
Cleaster Moon, 25, is a career criminal whose first adult charges came when he was just 17. After he served 11 days in jail for theft in 2012, he was arrested and charged for the same crime again in 2014. He was sentenced to three years in prison, but that sentence was withheld and he instead served five months. Moon was emboldened because he realized that the justice system wasn't going to throw the book at him.
So he kept committing crimes.
In 2014, he was convicted of resisting an officer, receiving stolen property, and bail jumping. The following year, he was convicted of resisting again, and in 2016, he was convicted of theft of movable property again.
In 2017, he went before Judge Karofsky on charges of battery and burglary. While out on bond, he committed more crimes and in August of 2018 was charged with car theft, hit and run, eluding an officer, and resisting or obstructing, all as a repeat offender. A month later, he was charged with burglary again. All told, he faced 40 years in prison, but Karofsky sentenced him to just 18 months.
“There is no joy in sending someone to prison, especially when someone is as young as you are,” she said during his sentencing hearing, noting that he had promised to change his behavior and had scheduled a job interview at Sub-Zero in Madison. “I’m confident that if you go down the road that you’re talking about today, you’ll end up, in the future, putting this behind you and — and working at a place like Sub-Zero.”
He didn't. As soon as he got out of prison and while he was still on probation, he went right back to committing crimes. He stole a car in Waukesha County and led police on a high-speed chase. Last October, he was charged in connection to a car theft and burglary ring of which Moon was the alleged "kingpin."
Moon along with 19-year-old Juriese E. Bell of Benton Harbor, Michigan, and 19-year-old Stephon E. Williams of Madison were arrested Oct. 5 after a vehicle they used to escape arrest by Shorewood Hills police was found outside a home on Cimarron Trail. They were arrested after authorities said they tried to outrun police. A juvenile was also arrested for taking part in several Shorewood Hills burglaries.
Moon is facing 17 charges including burglary, taking and driving a vehicle without consent, theft, and misappropriate ID information to take money in three separate Dane County cases. Bell is facing 8 charges, and Williams is facing 6 charges.
According to three criminal complaints filed in Dane County Court, Moon is linked to vehicles stolen in Mount Horeb, Reedsburg, Jefferson, Town of Bristol, and Waunakee.