County Board Candidate Faces Complaint For Lying In Campaign Ads

Milwaukee County Courthouse. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

Ryan Antczak, a perennial candidate for public office in Milwaukee, once again faces a complaint that he was knowingly spreading lies in his campaign. This time it comes in his race against incumbent County Supervisor Kathleen Vincent.

Attorney Michael Maistelman filed a complaint Wednesday with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office on behalf of Vincent, charging that Antczak spread false claims about Vincent’s meeting attendance and job performance “knowingly or with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity.” Vincent is requesting an investigation of the complaint and prosecution for alleged violations of the law.

Antczak has circulated campaign literature claiming Vincent has “missed nearly 50% of meetings taxpayers pay her to attend” and that she “admits she struggles juggling three jobs.” These assertions are “demonstrably false,” according to the complaint, which states Vincent has attended a majority of County Board meetings and has never suggested she can’t handle her job responsibilities.

Antczak and Vincent face off in the election for District 11 on the Milwaukee County Board, representing the villages of Greenfield and Greendale and a small section of the southwestern corner of the city of Milwaukee. It is Antczak’s second campaign for the County Board. He has also run for a seat in the state Assembly and on the Milwaukee Common Council.

In 2024, Antczak was removed from the ballot as a candidate for Milwaukee County Board District 12 after filing nomination signatures using the wrong paperwork. Later that year, he pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly making a false statement to affect the outcome of an election. Antczak had been distributing mailers that said aldermanic opponent JoCasta Zamarripa “actively fired” former Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales, a false claim.

Antczak declined to comment on the new complaint against him, which similarly charges that he knowingly made false representations to affect the election, that he criminally defamed Vincent and that he knowingly published false information to injure someone. If the district attorney agrees with the alleged violations of law, Antczak could face three misdemeanor charges.

Regarding Antczak’s claims about Vincent, the complaint filed with the DA’s office states, “Public records reflecting Supervisor Vincent’s meeting attendance and professional obligations directly contradict these assertions and are readily verifiable.”

Maistelman reports these records show her attendance at County Board and committee meetings was “92% in 2022, 83% in 2023, 88% in 2024, 88% in 2025, and 100% in 2026 to date.” He also charged that the statement about Vincent “admits she struggles juggling three jobs” is “patently false.”

“Supervisor Vincent has never made such an admission, and no source or attribution is provided because none exists,” the complaint states. “This fabricated statement further evidences Antczak’s knowing or reckless disregard for the truth and is part of a broader pattern of false representations intended to mislead voters.”

Along with serving on the County Board, Vincent is a teacher for Kenosha Unified School District (KUSD) and a member of the Greendale School Board. Vincent successfully sponsored a county board resolution in 2024 that pushed back the start of County Board meetings to noon to make it easier for supervisors to schedule around their other professional commitments.

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