MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin legislator has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct in connection with a bitter feud with her caucus over resolutions honoring Hispanics.

Prosecutors in Milwaukee County charged state Rep. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez in February. Online court records show the Milwaukee Democrat entered the guilty plea Friday, and Judge Paul Malloy ordered her to pay a $300 fine and submit a DNA sample. She could have faced up to 90 days in jail.

Ortiz-Velez said in a statement after the sentencing that she will pay the fine and remains focused on her constituents, not caucus infighting.

“My voting choices caused a rift that has been ugly and bitter,” she said. “My constituents did not send me to Madison to litigate internal caucus disputes or be distracted by the personal feuds — they sent me there to deliver results.”

A spokesperson from Assembly Democratic Minority Leader Greta Neubauer did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

According to the criminal complaint, the feud began in August as Democratic members of the state Assembly were planning resolutions honoring Hispanic heritage and Hispanic veterans in observance of Hispanic Heritage Month in September.

Ortiz-Velez grew angry because she believed an unnamed lawmaker drafting the heritage resolution had intentionally excluded her from working on it.

The complaint states that she had been invited to work on the resolution in June and chose not to participate but still wanted to help draft the language. She contacted media outlets saying she had been intentionally left out of the resolution work. She also told the resolution’s author that she felt excluded from working on another resolution that same legislator was crafting honoring Hispanic veterans, saying her late husband was a Hispanic veteran.

Two more unnamed lawmakers told investigators that Ortiz-Velez told them in separate phone conversations that she was going to spread “negative personal information” about the resolutions’ author to the media and that “they are going to do what I want them to do, or I’m going to x, y and z,” according to the complaint.

When one of the lawmakers asked her what that meant, she made comments about the resolutions’ author’s personal life and other legislators. The complaint characterized those remarks as “indecent and tended to disrupt the good public order” but does not elaborate or offer any more specificity.

Democratic leaders issued a statement in September saying Ortiz-Velez had made a comment about shooting three caucus members. That statement came a day after another statement announcing that Ortiz-Velez was leaving the Democratic caucus.

In interviews with the news website Wisconsin Right Now and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Ortiz-Velez denied that she threatened her colleagues. But the Legislature’s human resources office barred her from entering the state Capitol for a day. A spokesperson for Assembly Republican Speaker Robin Vos said at the time that she shouldn’t have been banned.

Ortiz-Velez’s attorney, Michael Cernin, said in a telephone interview Friday that Assembly Democrats were already upset with Ortiz-Velez going into September because she had voted for the 2025-27 state budget and for new legislative maps Democratic Gov. Tony Evers drew up in 2024. Democrats opposed the spending plan in part because they felt it doesn’t adequately fund public schools and argued the state Supreme Court should have drawn the new legislative maps.

Rep. Priscilla Prado, another Milwaukee Democrat, wouldn’t allow Ortiz-Velez to participate in the Hispanic resolutions, he said. Two of the lawmakers who went unnamed in the complaint made allegations to investigators that Ortiz-Velez had threatened to expose unsavory elements of Prado’s personal life to the media, he said.

“It’s incredibly petty, and Sylvia didn’t want any part of this,” Cernin said. “Sylvia truly wanted to spare Prado any sort of embarrassment on this.”

No one immediately responded to messages left with Prado’s Capitol’s office seeking comment on Friday afternoon.

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Fox Valley area drivers, you’re not alone in your feelings around Interstate 41 construction.

In a survey from Munley Law, a personal injury law firm, I-41 was named the “angriest route” in Wisconsin. The law firm surveyed more than 3,000 workers nationwide on the worst commutes in each state that causes the most road rage.

The workers were asked which commutes make them angry because of road congestion, aggressive driving or unpredictable delays. Munley Law said people were polled to reflect the U.S. working population. The results of the “Toxic Traffic” survey were released in February.

The Fox Valley ranked on top of the list in Wisconsin, likely due to the traffic changes amid construction on I-41.

Traffic congestion probably won’t get better soon. The ongoing I-41 project will continue through 2030 to reconstruct 23 miles of the interstate between Grand Chute and De Pere.

One of the largest impacts of the project will start in spring in Appleton with the closure of the State 47/Richmond Street interchange. All on- and off-ramps and the bridge over I-41 will close from spring to fall this year.

Air your grievances in person

If you want to attend a meeting about the I-41 project, attend a public meeting at 5-7 p.m. March 17 at The Marq, 3177 French Road in De Pere, or 5-7 p.m. March 19 at Fox Valley Technical College’s D.J. Bordini Center, 5 N. Systems Drive in Appleton.

Contact Benita Mathew at bmathew@usatodayco.com.