Published on: May 25, 2025
In our recent case study of the victim living in Don Klyberg’s Minnesota slum property, we exposed a harrowing and persistent system of domestic violence, sexual violence, and emotional abuse inflicted on African Americans through what we define as “intimate non-personal” relationships.
These relationships—marked by forced physical proximity and structural power imbalances—exist outside the bounds of consensual, chosen intimacy, yet mirror the very same traumas acknowledged in dominant definitions of abuse.
What makes these experiences particularly insidious is that they remain largely unrecognized by existing, white-centric models of domestic and sexual violence, and emotional abuse. Despite clear parallels in pattern and impact, the language of abuse too often excludes these realities, categorizing them instead as racial disparities or institutional failures (if at all, often they're dismissed as the victim being oversensitive, having something to hide or outright being told "that's not my job" to address these abuses by employee's whose job it is to absolutely address these complaints). Racial disparities and institutional failures are terms that sanitize and separate, rather than confront the violence for what it is.
In the white-centric model, boyfriends, husbands, girlfriends, wives, blood related family members are not designated to their own "disparity categories." These are all common offender profiles for everyone. However, for black victims there is an added category which the others don't face— intimate non-personal offenders. It doesn't need to be designated to its own "disparity category"— its abuse the same as all the others.
"Racial disparity" is a coded language, where efforts to correct crime go to die because society doesn't want them corrected; it's racially and socioeconomically profitable to prevent knowledge and correction of crimes against black people. That's what that language is for. At North Star, we specialize in uncomplicating intentionally complicated language—to get the facts.
This failure to explicitly name and include the abuse of African Americans in these coercive, system-bound relationships which occur in close physical proximity creates a dangerous loophole—one that predators continue to exploit.
These are intimate relationships not by choice, but by necessity: relationships forged through legal mandates, economic dependency such as employment, and basic human need such as housing. Yet, the harm done within them is real, recurring, and rooted in the same dynamics of power, control, and violation seen in every other form of abuse.
Until our systems and language evolve to appropriately include these experiences of intimate non-personal relationships within the broader conversation of domestic and sexual violence, and emotional abuse, we will continue to create blockades to escape, protection and correction for targeted individuals of this form of abuse—leaving Black bodies unprotected, unheard, and repeatedly harmed in plain sight.
The nuance is that these are not "personal" relationships with chosen partners in the same way the current white-centric language focuses on, because white people aren't experiencing intimate non-personal relationship abuse.
With intimate non-personal abuse, predators exploit the blind spot created through the systematic failure to address racism in institutions and businesses — entitling themselves, privileging themselves, to take liberties with Black bodies identical to all other forms of domestic violence, sexual violence, and emotional abuse, as if they are chosen intimate partners.
Simply because the continued refusal to address systematic racism as a non-segregated matter continues to serve as permission to act with ownership of Black bodies, we fail to protect Black bodies and we're quick to criminalize them for protecting themselves — creating a situation where the average Black American is not legally entitled to set or defend personal boundaries, despite law existing because of the damages and injuries that are often caused through the violation of personal boundaries.
As a result, Black Americans are chronic victims of domestic violence, sexual violence, and emotional abuse by intimate non-personal predators, and their injuries are going ignored and their given little legal recourse to escape these relationships simply because the white-centric model incorrectly does not classify intimate non-personal partners.
In essence, to their credit, Black people are not choosing these partners or relationships as is the case in the white-centric model where partners and relationships are voluntarily selected and maintained until a victim wants to escape. In intimate non-personal relationships, victims already made the responsible decision not to personally engage an abusive profile—these are forced relationships from the very beginning.
These relationships start by failure to enforce regulation, policy, and law during the administrative execution of duties in American institutions—the foundation of Minnesota Paradox.
These policies, laws, and regulations are put in place to prevent injuries by upholding a would-be victim's right to boundaries. When we fail to address administrative violations, we send the message that there is no legal protection for would-be victims, and this is the motivation for predators to commit more heinous attacks: knowing that it is unlikely that they'll be held accountable for an attack when the victim is Black.
This administrative system of racism and violence is deeply intertwined with Plausible Deniability, the more northern form which we here along the snowbelt cope with identically to the more commonly communicated Sun Down form of systematic racism in the south. SREM and IJD discuss the framework and barriers to stopping this form of systemic racism—with all its traumatic and deadly violence.
Our case study is not an isolated incident but part of a disturbing pattern where African Americans are subjected to racially motivated domestic violence, sexual violence, and emotional abuse. We mentioned in the case study that we were able to provide more than 800 victims who have experienced "Intimate non-personal" sexual and emotional abuse. Unsurprisingly, these more than 800 cases all take place in the Midwest—along the snow belt.
The following case is from Minnesota's bordering state of Wisconsin and serves as a stark example of this ongoing issue. Here is yet another chilling example of a disturbing pattern of Intimate non-personal abuse that has gone unchecked for too long.
In Milwaukee, four police officers have been charged with multiple felonies for allegedly conducting illegal body cavity searches on suspects—repeatedly and with flagrant disregard for both state law and human dignity.
Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn didn’t mince words at a press conference: "The conduct alleged today is by any definition disgraceful, and it’s brought disgrace to the Milwaukee Police Department." His remarks came as Officer Michael Vagnini, a veteran of eight years on the force, was charged with 25 criminal counts, including second-degree sexual assault.
Vagnini’s alleged conduct is nothing short of horrifying. Prosecutors say he routinely violated Wisconsin law by performing rectal searches during traffic stops—often without gloves and without medical training, as the law requires. In many cases, the victims were forced to strip naked after arrest, without any legal justification.
But Vagnini did not act alone. Officers Jeffrey Dollhopf, Jacob Knight, and Brian Kozelek face charges for either directly assisting Vagnini in these acts or failing to stop them. In one particularly egregious incident, a suspect was allegedly choked by one officer and had a gun held to his head by another, as Vagnini forcibly sexually searched him on a public street.
These were not isolated incidents. More than 60 allegations were investigated during the Milwaukee Police Department’s internal probe. Alarmingly, over 30 fellow officers came forward to confirm the worst of these reports. According to Chief Flynn, “It was our internal affairs division that first detected a disturbing pattern of complaints. Our own police officers provided testimony that validated the complaints.”
This is not merely a case of rogue officers—it is a window into a system that enabled and protected this for years in their department, a symptom of Intimate Non-Personal domestic violence, sexual violence and emotional abuse that is common place all around the United States of America, and is the current case for the victim of our case study who is experiencing Intimate Non-Personal abuse by property manager Rick Newmann—employee of registered slumlord Don Klyberg.
Officer Vagnini and others were suspended with pay in 2012, suggesting institutional reluctance to act decisively even in the face of serious accusations.
District Attorney John Chisholm emphasized the gravity of the situation: “Wisconsin strip search law is designed to protect both the suspect and the police officers conducting the search. The facts alleged in this complaint are serious breaches of that process.”
The abuse mirrored in the Klyberg case is evident here. Just as the victim of case study endured emotional manipulation, retaliatory control and sexual harassment, the victims in Milwaukee suffered from a systemic pattern of degradation and humiliation. The officers' actions were not isolated; they were part of a broader culture that dehumanized Black individuals, exploiting their vulnerability for personal and institutional gain.
This case underscores the urgent need to address the intersection of race, power, and abuse in intimate non-personal relationships. It highlights how such relationships can serve as a microcosm for broader societal issues, where racial prejudice and power imbalances facilitate and perpetuate cycles of abuse.
The parallels between the victim experience in the Klyberg case and the victims in Milwaukee are undeniable. Both cases reflect a systemic disregard for the dignity and rights of African Americans, manifesting in intimate settings where trust and power dynamics are exploited. These instances are not anomalies but part of a pervasive pattern that demands accountability and systemic change.
By examining these cases, we can better understand the complexities of abuse in intimate non-personal relationships and the specific ways in which African Americans are disproportionately affected. It is crucial to recognize these patterns to dismantle the systems that perpetuate such abuses and to support the victims who continue to suffer in silence.
The parallels to the Klyberg case—and to countless others—are not coincidental. They are indicative of a pattern: heinous acts of violence and trauma motivated by predators exploiting loopholes of non-addressed systematic racism which abuses authority, victims silenced or ignored, internal systems slow to respond, and accountability arriving only after public exposure.
This case in Milwaukee is just one file in a growing archive of over 800 Intimate Non-Personal relationship incidents we have documented, including the victim of our case study. Each deserves scrutiny, each victim deserves justice, and each case reinforces the call for the formal inclusion of Legal Abuse Syndrome (LAS) in the DSM as a stand alone form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, to include systematic racism and social injustice so that victims of these acts have well trained, therapeutic options for healing after they have been violated.
Additionally, Intimate Non-Personal relationship must become part of the abuse advocacy, protection and prosecution infrastructure—without segregation to a racially specific category.
More to come.
Additional Source: Court House News
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