Ex-western Wisconsin prosecutor sentenced to 1 1⁄2 years for recording his sex acts with defendants

A former western Wisconsin prosecutor received an 18-month prison term Monday for secretly recording sexual encounters with two women while leading them to believe he could help them with their pending criminal cases.

Daniel P. Steffen, 52, was sentenced in St. Croix County District Court after a jury convicted him on all three counts of representations depicting nudity in connection with the sexual encounters in 2018, when he was a Burnett County assistant district attorney.

Along with his prison time Steffen's sentence includes two years of extended supervision, four years of probation and placement for 10 years on the state's sex offender registry.

At the time of his conviction in April, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said in a statement that "those who abuse their positions of authority must be held accountable."

According to the criminal complaint:

Early in 2020, state investigators were alerted that a woman "openly talked" about having sex with Steffen "in exchange for leniency on criminal cases [she] had pending in Burnett County."

In February 2020, the woman first denied to a state investigator that she had sex with Steffen and said her cases ended with her paying a fine. Three months later, the woman admitted to having sex with Steffen.

She said they first met in his office while he was prosecuting her for violating a restraining order. They began exchanging texts, and Steffen eventually invited her to his home, where they had sex. They continued having sex there and at his office during work hours.

The investigator seized an iPad from Steffen's bedroom dresser. On the device was a video showing Steffen and the woman having sex on Aug. 8, 2018. A similar video was shot on Sept. 11, 2018. In both cases, the woman said she didn't know she was being recorded.

A third video was found on the iPad, from Feb. 11, 2018, showing Steffen and a different woman having sex. At one point, the two can be heard talking "about how she could avoid criminal charges for hitting a mailbox," the charges read. The woman told the investigator she and Steffen had multiple "hookups" in 2018 and didn't know she was being recorded during one encounter.