Keshena, Neopit men face vehicle theft and bail-jumping charges

Two Menominee County names stood out in the latest Shawano-Menominee Circuit Court roundup: a Keshena man accused of taking a vehicle without consent and a Neopit man facing two felony bail-jumping counts. John J. Aguilar, 49, and Vince N. Crow, 35, were the clearest local entries in the June 16 court report, and both now move into the circuit court’s regular criminal process.

Aguilar was charged June 8 with taking and driving a vehicle without consent. Crow was charged June 12 with two counts of felony bail jumping. In practical terms, both cases are now in the court system’s early stages, where bond conditions, status conferences, preliminary hearings and other pretrial steps can determine how quickly they advance and what restrictions the defendants face along the way.

The cases matter because they came from Keshena and Neopit, two of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin’s five main communities. The tribe says its reservation sits on the ancestral homelands of its 8,551 tribal members and has nearly coterminous boundaries with Menominee County, making circuit court action in Shawano and Menominee especially visible in daily life across the reservation. The tribe also traces its history to the mouth of the Menominee River, about 60 miles east of the present reservation.

The June 16 roundup also fits a pattern that has been showing up in recent court reports. Nicole S. Madosh of Keshena was charged May 6 with possession of methamphetamine, three felony bail-jumping counts and additional misdemeanor counts. Christy R. Boyd of Neopit later pleaded no contest to methamphetamine possession and three felony bail-jumping counts. Taken together, those filings suggest that felony bail jumping and drug-related charges have been recurring themes for some Menominee County residents appearing before the Shawano-Menominee Circuit Court.

That court arrangement gives the local cases added significance. Shawano and Menominee counties share a paired circuit, and the Wisconsin Court System describes Menominee County as a federal reservation county with both judges for the circuit located in Shawano. For residents following cases out of Keshena and Neopit, the result is a courthouse process that can feel distant in geography but immediate in consequence, especially when charges involve vehicles, release conditions and repeat court appearances.