A Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge, and “longtime LGBTQ activist” has been arrested and charged with “seven counts of possession of child pornography that showed the abuse of young boys,” according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Judge Brett Blomme, 38, is the former president and CEO of the Cream City Foundation, which runs the city’s drag queen story hour program.
Blomme taken into custody by special agents with the state Division of Criminal Investigation on Tuesday, following an investigation into over two dozen uploads of child pornography onto his computer.
Blomme is currently assigned to the Milwaukee County Children’s Court.
According to the criminal complaint, the judge uploaded as many as 27 images and videos of children being sexually abused using the a Kik messaging application account in October and November of 2020. The files were allegedly shared with Kik users through private chat messages or in a messaging group.
Most of the uploads, according to the complaint, occurred in a Dane County home where he resides with his husband and their two adopted children. Two of the child porn files were uploaded at a Milwaukee County government building, the search warrant said.
The complaint also indicates that Blomme uploaded images while at a friend’s home in Milwaukee.
That friend, referred to in a search warrant as Individual B, confirmed to investigators that Blomme was at his home on days that the friend’s internet service showed uploads by DomMasterBB of child pornography.
According to Blomme’s bio, his husband Chris works for the University of Wisconsin-Madison and “the family is active with Miltown LGBT Families in Milwaukee.”
A Dane County court commissioner on Wednesday set a signature bond, allowing Blomme to be released with the conditions that he not “use social media or file sharing services, or have unsupervised contact with children, except for his own.”
Court records do not suggest that the gay couples’ children were part of any of the pornographic images, but “Child Protective Services is involved with their current placement,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
“[His] kids are a more difficult situation,” said Dane County Court Commissioner Brian Asmus during Blomme’s initial court appearance. “He does have a husband who I have to assume is going to take whatever necessary precautions there are to ensure his children aren’t victims … I expect that the husband will monitor the children and not put them in a situation where they could potentially become victims.”
Blomme used the name “dommasterbb” to upload the 27 child porn videos and images, according to a 44-page search warrant filed Friday by a Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) special agent.
Each of the counts carries a minimum mandatory sentence of three years and as much as 15 years in prison plus 10 years of supervised release.
Blomme was elected to the court in the spring 2020 election, defeating incumbent Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Paul Dedinsky, an appointee of former Republican Gov. Scott Walker. He ran as a “progressive” challenger to the conservative Walker appointee.
“I’m the progressive alternative,” he said during the campaign.
Blomme is a longtime friend of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, according to the Journal-Sentinel.
Before being elected, Blomme was the head of the board of zoning appeals for the City of Milwaukee, appointed to the post by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
In 2019, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett urged Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to select Blomme to an opening on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, saying he had known Blomme for nearly 20 years.
“I have had the opportunity to watch Brett grow into a leader and a strong advocate for Milwaukee, a person of impeccable integrity and someone who has worked to make Milwaukee a more diverse and equitable place for all,” Barrett wrote.
Evers did not appoint Blomme to the opening.
On Wednesday, Barrett called the child porn allegations alarming and Blomme’s arrest “a complete surprise.”
As the head of the left-wing Cream City Foundation, he provided grant money to LGBTQ groups in the Milwaukee area, and ran their Drag Queen Story Hour program, which, according to the Cream City Foundation website, “gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.”
Drag Queen Story Hour is just what it sounds like–drag queens reading stories to children in libraries, schools, and bookstores.
DQSH captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.
In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.
The investigation was led by the state Department of Justice with help from the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office.
A preliminary hearing has been set for May 29.