Update: Judge declines arrest warrant for Minocqua Brewing Co. owner

An Oneida County judge has declined an arrest warrant for Kirk Bangstad, owner of Minocqua Brewing Co., according to online court records.

The arrest warrant was entered into the record on Wednesday, related to a defamation case filed after Bangstad falsely implied that a newspaper publisher let his own brother die for financial gain. Court records show that the plaintiff in the case, Gregg Walker, filed a notice of motion for sanctions against Bangstad and asked the judge to find the brewery owner in contempt of court and issue an arrest warrant.

The court record showed that the warrant was indeed entered – but on Friday, updated records showed that entry was a “clerical error” in Oneida County and that the request was declined by Judge Leon Stenz.

“That’s just another week in Wisconsin, our deeply dysfunctional state–where the media is broke, 99% of us are broke, healthcare is broke, and the media illiterate have been manipulated to form an unholy alliance with the 1% to hand Democracy over to a Republican Party that has been deeply infiltrated by Russian propaganda,” a post on the Minocqua Brewing Co. Facebook page reads.

In the post, Bangstad calls out media affiliates for not confirming the warrant by phone with court officials.

The case itself stems from an August 2021 social media post in which Bangstad wrote that Lakeland Times Publisher Walker “allegedly stood by and did nothing while his brother accidentally fell from a tree stand and died” because he “allegedly knew he would inherit the once-legitimate Lakeland Times if his brother was out of the picture,” according to court documents. Walker was 17 at the time of the accident and was not present with his brother.

According to a Wisconsin Public Radio Report, at the time of that post, Walker had already filed suit against Bangstad over an earlier post that referred to Walker as a “crook.” Bangstad made the comments in a public message about that lawsuit.

Bangstad was ultimately found guilty of defaming Walker and was ordered to pay nearly $760,000 in damages. The Minocqua Brewing Co. was also ordered to pay roughly $329,000 in damages in the lawsuit. Neither debt has been paid, according to court records.

The Minocqua Brewing Co.’s Facebook page on Wednesday showed a screenshot of a WJFW story about the warrant with the caption, “Ok guys, if you see Kirk anywhere, keep it on the down low ok?”

A hearing in the case is set for May 22.