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- A UW-Madison police officer received a letter of reprimand after a student journalist in April 2025 brought to light allegations of inappropriate behavior.
- The behavior included late-night texts and flirtatious conversations with female students while on duty and relaying confidential police information to help students avoid consequences for underage drinking.
- The internal police investigation into the officer’s behavior included no interviews with students.
- Two students reported the officer’s behavior to Greek life officials in October 2024. Greek life discussed the concerns with the officer, but did not alert UWPD.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison police officer received a letter of reprimand last summer after a student journalist alerted UWPD about allegations of the officer’s inappropriate conduct with sorority and fraternity members. A follow-up Wisconsin Watch investigation has found UWPD interviewed no students as part of its internal review.
Additionally, six months before the student journalist alerted police, two former sorority executives reported the officer’s unsettling behavior to UW-Madison’s Greek life staff, who discussed the matter with the officer but did not forward the complaint to UWPD.
Wisconsin Watch first reported in July 2025 on allegations that UWPD Officer Diego Lema Hernandez had initiated late-night texting conversations, asked female students on coffee dates while on duty and relayed confidential police information to help students avoid consequences for underage drinking.
Wisconsin Watch is now naming Lema Hernandez because UWPD confirmed he received a letter of reprimand in June 2025. Lema Hernandez did not respond to requests for comment.
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Crossing the line: UW-Madison investigating police officer who students say acted inappropriately
A student journalist uncovered examples of late-night texts, free rides and sharing of police intel to help students avoid bar raids.
UWPD investigators found that Lema Hernandez failed to exercise good judgment in communicating with students about his knowledge of when Madison police would check bars for underage patrons.
Other allegations, which are fully redacted from the final report, were not sustained.
Lema Hernandez, who joined UWPD in 2017, remains a downtown community liaison officer for the department.
Student journalist prompts investigation
UWPD learned of allegations against Lema Hernandez in April 2025 from a UW-Madison student journalist, who spoke with 11 students on the condition of anonymity.
“We took these concerns and allegations very seriously and launched an internal investigation based on the information provided to us,” UWPD spokesperson Marc Lovicott said in an email.
(UW-Madison)
According to the internal investigative report obtained under the state’s public records law, UWPD conducted two interviews with Lema Hernandez and a five-minute phone call with a Madison police officer. Investigators also reviewed dozens of Lema Hernandez’s text conversations and identified 70 that related to bar checks, often followed by short phone calls.
Referred to as “raids” by students, bar checks are police inspections of drinking establishments for compliance with alcohol laws, including age and capacity restrictions.
In one February 2025 example, a student texted Lema Hernandez about whether Whiskey Jacks Saloon would be checked that night and if they should leave. Lema Hernandez responded that he could call in five minutes. They spoke for about a minute, and the student later thanked him on the way home.
In other texts when asked about bar checks, Lema Hernandez responded with phrases like “likelihood is high tonight,” “nothing for tonight that I know of,” and “yesterday and tonight run a good probability.”
When questioned, Lema Hernandez told investigators that he called students to tell them he did not have information about when or where bar checks would occur — and that even if he did, he would not share it.
Throughout UWPD interviews, Lema Hernandez recognized that a lot of the text messages “look bad” when it comes to sharing information about bar checks. He also acknowledged the optics of a male officer meeting with sorority members and said he does not want to put himself or UWPD “in that position.”
“Better judgement should have been used in the language to convey what information you do and don’t have in several areas,” UWPD Assistant Chief Kari Sasso wrote in Lema Hernandez’s June 2025 letter of discipline. “You know you should have been more direct in your text messages sharing that you do not have information on where and when bars will be checked.”
“Your verbal and written communications must be clear to ensure there are no misunderstandings. You are a valued member of the department. You go above and beyond to be a resource for your community, providing safety tips, meeting with community members, and assuring students have a sounding board to guide them through tough situations.”
UWPD concluded its investigation before Wisconsin Watch published the student journalist’s report in July 2025. The department did not interview any of the students who made the allegations, according to the investigative report.
Lovicott said UWPD still has not received any formal complaints from any campus department or students about Lema Hernandez. He said UWPD could not interview students because the student journalist did not provide the sources’ identities. He did not respond to a question about whether police attempted to use the text message records to contact students.
“Based on the findings of our investigation, there was no new information in the article that warranted reopening the investigation,” he said in an email.
University policy unclear on reporting police complaints
After last year’s article was published, Wisconsin Watch spoke with two former student sorority executives who said they brought concerns about Lema Hernandez to staff at the UW-Madison Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL) in October 2024 — six months before UWPD learned about separate allegations from the student journalist.
Both requested anonymity because they feared potential consequences for speaking publicly about former colleagues. Neither was among the 11 anonymous sources who were interviewed for the Wisconsin Watch article.
“I really appreciate you all making a story about this, I think this officer has made so many women feel this way,” one of the women wrote to Wisconsin Watch in response to the article.
She said Lema Hernandez was openly flirtatious, calling her sweetheart in conversation and texting her late at night.
“I had gone back and forth so many times, wondering, ‘Am I overreacting? Am I in the wrong? Is this my fault?’” she said later in an interview. “It became more and more clear to me that he was creating a power dynamic and really stepping over the line of being a professional resource.”
Her friend, another sorority executive, recalled one incident when Lema Hernandez spent the entire day hanging out at the Fraternity and Sorority Life office. When arrests came up in conversation, Lema Hernandez offered to “arrest” her, she said. She agreed, thinking it was funny — but left the interaction “physically, mentally and emotionally” uncomfortable after he handcuffed her hands behind her back. Wisconsin Watch reviewed a copy of a photo of the incident.
The women reported Lema Hernandez’s behavior to FSL staff, and their concerns were escalated to director Maggie Hayes, who told them later that month that she would reach out to Lema Hernandez directly, the sorority executive said.
In an email, Hayes initially told Wisconsin Watch that the complaint was shared “with the UWPD team.” After UWPD said it was not contacted about the complaint, she clarified that the office called Lema Hernandez directly to discuss the complaint.
UW-Madison’s Office of Student Affairs said in a statement that the complaint did not meet Title IX reporting requirements for sexual harassment or rise to the level of notifying Lema Hernandez’s supervisors or UWPD.
UWPD policy creates a clear internal reporting process once a complaint reaches UWPD. UW-Madison’s university-wide reporting policies, however, do not appear to require employees to forward non-Title IX complaints about UWPD officer conduct to the department.
“The FSL team confirmed that the described behavior did not meet the criteria for mandatory staff reporting,” said Jenny Bernhardt, director of communications for the university’s Office of Student Affairs. “With the student’s consent, (FSL) addressed the general issue directly with Officer Lema Hernandez as concerns raised by a larger group of FSL student leaders.”
Bernhardt spoke on behalf of Hayes, who did not respond when asked why she initially said FSL spoke with the UWPD team. Bernhardt confirmed FSL did not further escalate the information after speaking with Lema Hernandez.
“In the FSL staff conversation with Lema Hernandez in October 2024, it was agreed that his future communications with FSL students would be related to safety, security, and event management only, conveyed through UW-Madison channels, and include FSL Office staff,” Bernhardt said.
UWPD records show Lema Hernandez communicated with students about bar checks about two dozen times between the October 2024 conversation and when UWPD launched its internal investigation in April 2025.
‘Who do you hold responsible?’
Lema Hernandez often visited sorority houses to give presentations covering campus safety, medical amnesty and behavior-based policing.
The student journalist who wrote the original Wisconsin Watch article attended one of Lema Hernandez’s sorority presentations and recorded audio in which Lema Hernandez told freshmen and sophomores, “Every now and then I might hold whatever door I’m manning open for the three or four of you to leave without any real consequences — but don’t tell my boss that. I say that because I’ve actually done it.”
UWPD investigators did not review the recording itself, but asked Lema Hernandez about the student journalist’s account of it. He told investigators he probably said something like he would “rather hold the door” but it’s not something he can or would do.
He also told investigators that part of his role as an officer is to ensure the Greek life community is following the university approval process when hosting social events at bars.
Sylvia Butters, another student journalist, interviewed Lema Hernandez for a class project in February 2025. In a recording Butters provided to Wisconsin Watch, Lema Hernandez described how students would alert him about planned social events at bars, which he would relay to Madison police. He said he would then personally monitor the events and tell Madison police not to worry about checking them.
He mentioned a February 2024 fraternity event at 7 Iron Social, a since-closed sports bar on State Street. The event appears to match one where police found 106 of the 125 patrons were underage, according to an official city report on the incident.
“I (told the officers), from 9 to 11, there’s an event, it’s been checked. I will continue doing my checks. Essentially, don’t touch it until at least 11:30,” he told Butters.
Lema Hernandez told Butters that Madison police entered 7 Iron Social at 11:46 p.m. after an intoxicated individual “stumbled into a group of cops” who were planning to check a different bar. They found no one checking IDs or monitoring capacity at 7 Iron Social, he said.
“Who do you hold responsible?” Lema Hernandez told Butters. “For Officer Diego, like, y’all were good until 11:30 … Then, I have a conversation with the (fraternity), like, ‘I had you up until I couldn’t have you anymore.’”
“There’s a lot of things that I can do for people,” Lema Hernandez added. “I take, obviously, a big risk when I do it.”
Asked if Lema Hernandez was authorized to communicate with Madison police in the manner he described — including conveying when officers should or should not conduct a bar check — Lovicott said UWPD officers routinely work with Madison police.
“That is precisely what happened in this instance; information sharing helps our partners know about official events and where they’re located,” Lovicott wrote in an email. “It is purely information sharing, and has nothing to do with how MPD conducts patrols or enforcement actions.”
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