State v. Wesley W. Koltis

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COURT OF APPEALS
DECISION
DATED AND FILED

January 23, 2026

Samuel A. Christensen

Clerk of Court of Appeals

Appeal No. 2024AP1232-CR

NOTICE

This opinion is subject to further editing. If
published, the official version will appear in
the bound volume of the Offical Reports.

A party may file with the Supreme Court a
petition to review an adverse decision by the
Court of Appeals. See Wis. STAT. § 808.10 and
RULE 809.62.

Cir. Ct. No. 2020CF9

STATE OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF APPEALS
DISTRICT IV
STATE OF WISCONSIN,
PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT,
V.

WESLEY W. KOLTIS,

DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

APPEAL from a judgment and an order of the circuit court for Clark
County: PAUL S. CURRAN, Judge. Affirmed.

Before Blanchard, Nashold, and Taylor, JJ.

Per curiam opinions may not be cited in any court of this state as precedent

or authority, except for the limited purposes specified in Wis. STAT. RULE 809,23().

{1 ©§£PERCURIAM. Wesley Koltis appeals ajudgment of conviction and
an order denying his postconviction motion. The issue is whether the circuit court

No. 2024AP1232-CR
2
properly denied his motion to withdraw his pleas. We conclude that Koltis is not
entitled to plea withdrawal, and therefore we affirm.
¶2 Koltis pled no contest to one count each of third-degree sexual assault,
false imprisonment, and battery. He filed a postconviction motion seeking to
withdraw his pleas on several grounds. The circuit court denied the motion after an
evidentiary hearing.
¶3 On appeal, Koltis argues that he should be allowed to withdraw his
pleas because they were not made knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently. We
accept the circuit court’s findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous, but
whether a plea was voluntarily and knowingly entered is a question of constitutional
fact that we review independently. State v. Brown, 2004 WI App 179, ¶5, 276 Wis.
2d 559, 687 N.W.2d 543.
¶4 Koltis’s first argument for plea withdrawal is that he did not know that
the plea agreement had been revised to remove a provision that the State would
recommend probation, and that instead Koltis did not learn this until sentencing,
when the State recommended prison. The circuit court found that Koltis properly
understood the terms of the agreement when he pled.
¶5 Koltis argues that he “subjectively believed” that the probation
recommendation was still part of the plea agreement, even if his attorney had
informed him that this was no longer true, because Koltis misheard or misinterpreted
what his attorney said. Accordingly, he argues, the circuit court’s finding that his
attorney was more credible than Koltis is not dispositive, because it shows only that
the attorney conveyed the information to Koltis, but not that Koltis understood the
information.

No. 2024AP1232-CR
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¶6 This argument runs contrary to the circuit court’s factual findings.
The court did not find only that trial counsel was more credible than Koltis, it found
that “there was, in fact, no misunderstanding about the plea agreement” and that
Koltis “did not have an erroneous understanding regarding the plea agreement.”
There is no difference between a defendant’s “understanding” and what Koltis refers
to as his “subjective belief.” In other words, the court found that Koltis subjectively
believed, at the time of his plea, that the probation recommendation was no longer
part of the plea agreement. The question on appeal is whether that finding was
clearly erroneous.
¶7 Koltis describes the evidence in his favor on this point, beyond his
own testimony, from inferences from collateral sources such as therapy records and
his mother’s testimony. In addition, Koltis disputes reasons that the circuit court
gave for not finding his own testimony credible. Without attempting to discuss each
point individually here, we are satisfied that the finding is not clearly erroneous. It
was supported by his trial counsel’s testimony that counsel discussed the plea offer
with Koltis and that Koltis appeared to understand it, and also by the fact that the
offer itself, stating that both sides were free to argue about sentencing, was attached
to the plea questionnaire signed by Koltis.
¶8 In addition, at the start of the plea colloquy, Koltis’s attorney stated
that the terms of the plea agreement included that the “parties would be free to argue
at sentencing.” At no point during the plea hearing did Koltis raise any question
about this statement. At the postconviction evidentiary hearing, Koltis testified that
he first learned that the State might recommend prison when it did so at the
sentencing hearing, but that he did not speak up then, either, because he felt defeated
and could not speak. Koltis’s silence at these critical moments is reasonably
understood as indicating lack of surprise, and it supports the circuit court’s finding

No. 2024AP1232-CR
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that he in fact understood at the time of the plea hearing that the plea offer did not
include an agreement on a sentencing recommendation by the State.
¶9 Koltis’s second argument that he should be allowed to withdraw his
pleas is that his trial counsel gave him an unrealistic view of possible sentencing
outcomes, and that this constituted ineffective assistance of counsel and made his
pleas unknowingly, involuntarily, and unintelligently entered.
¶10 Koltis asserts that his attorney told him that the worst-case sentencing
scenario would be probation with one year of conditional jail, and that Koltis
understood this as a promise, which induced him to enter the pleas. The circuit court
found that trial counsel did not make such a promise, based mainly on trial counsel’s
testimony that he would never do that, because the court controls the sentence. If
this finding stands, both of Koltis’s theories of plea withdrawal fail.
¶11 On appeal, Koltis relies on his own testimony about what he asserts
counsel told him, along with supporting testimony by his mother. However, Koltis
does not provide a sufficient basis for us to conclude that the circuit court erred by
relying instead on the testimony of trial counsel. Accordingly, we conclude that the
finding that counsel did not make this promise was not clearly erroneous, and Koltis
fails to establish a basis to reverse the circuit court’s denial of his motion for plea
withdrawal.
By the Court.—Judgment and order affirmed.
This opinion will not be published. See WIS. STAT.
RULE 809.23(1)(b)5. (2023-24).