Colfax man suspected of criminal damage to property at the Colfax Laundromat
By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — A 29-year-old Colfax man is suspected of committing three misdemeanors pertaining to damage at the Colfax Laundromat.
Donald J. Binder is scheduled to make an initial appearance in Dunn County Circuit Court before Judge James Peterson March 13 on one misdemeanor count each of criminal damage to property, disorderly conduct and misdemeanor bail jumping in connection with an incident at the Colfax Laundromat on River Street December 15.
According to the criminal complaint, the owner of the Laundromat, Mark Mouledoux, reported several of the machines were “out of place” when he had checked earlier that night.
Security video showed a man wearing a mask had entered the Laundromat and had started to move and tilt the washing machines as if he were looking for change under or behind them. The man was wearing a two-toned coat that was white and another dark color.
Josh Shipman, an officer from the Colfax police department, reviewed the video and saw a heavy-set man, around six feet to six feet five inches tall, wearing tan khakis and a white and blue or black coat with a “V” type of design on the back with white on the top and the darker color on the bottom.
The man had tilted several of the washing machines forward in what appeared to be an attempt to look for loose change under or behind the machines. When the man moved one of the washers, the entire front portion had been pulled off, and the man was attempting to put it back together. Mouledoux told the officer he had to obtain new screws for the front portion of the washing machine because the screws had been broken when the man moved it, the complaint states.
The officer told Mouledoux the man was believed to be Donald Binder, known to law enforcement from previous contacts, and who had been seen walking along Main Street December 14 wearing the clothes shown in the video.
Several days later, Colfax Police Chief William Anderson contacted Commercial Testing Lab on Main Street in Colfax to ask if any of CTL’s surveillance cameras would show the Colfax Laundromat on River Street.
Pete Klug, owner of CTL, checked the cameras and said the cameras had a full view of the front of the Laundromat.
Klug reviewed the surveillance tapes and contacted Police Chief Anderson to say he had observed a male subject on the date and time in question in front of the Laundromat. The man walked a little ways away, pulled up a hood over his head and went back to the laundromat and went inside, the complaint states.
Police Chief Anderson viewed the surveillance video from December 15, 2017, which showed a man walking in front of the Laundromat who stopped and looked in the windows. The man walked a short distance away, pulled a hood up over his head and down over his face. The man went inside the Laundromat and could been seen through the window due to the type and color of the clothes he was wearing, according to the complaint.
Police Chief Anderson recognized Binder because of numerous contacts. The clothing Binder was wearing in the surveillance video from CTL matched the clothing of the man Officer Shipman had seen on the video surveillance from inside the Laundromat, according to the complaint.
The complaint was filed in Dunn County on January 30.
Binder also was charged in a separate case for an incident of burglary to a house on Balsam Street in Colfax the evening of December 13.
A neighbor had a surveillance video of two men, one who appeared to be acting as a look-out and one who had entered the house.
The man who entered the house, subsequently identified as Binder, was wearing the same clothing in all three surveillance videos from the burglary at the private residence, Commercial Testing Lab and the Colfax Laundromat.
Binder was convicted of entry into a locked coin box at the Colfax Laundromat in 2013.
