WELS Pastor Dave Wendt Is Gone - No Longer on His Parish Website. But the Internet Remembers

A Lutheran pastor in Wisconsin reportedly resigned Tuesday after an email threatening to gang-rape an anti-police blogger was linked to his personal account.

The Rev. David Wendt of First Evangelical Lutheran Church in La Crosse submitted his resignation to the church council, a day after blogger Claire Van Fossen posted the email on social media, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Lee Hitter, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, said Mr. Wendt told synod President Mark Schroeder that he didn’t send the threatening email but admitted the email address the message was sent from did belong to him, the Journal Sentinel reported.

Mr. Hitter said the reverend asked the Onalaska Police Department’s cyber crimes unit to investigate, the newspaper said.

Ms. Van Fossen, a liberal Milwaukee blogger, said she received a wave of threatening emails following a blog post on JSOnline that claimed police departments do “more harm than good.”

One particular email, sent to Ms. Van Fossen from a Dave Wendt on March 27, called her “the dumbest [expletive] liberal [expletive] I’ve heard yet,” the Journal Sentinel reported.

“Get off the drugs, [expletive], and go check yourself into rehab,” the email continues. “Or better yet, you’re pretty hot. So how about if I come over and rape you with a few of my friends. WHEW! At least I won’t have to worry about you calling the police.”

Ms. Van Fossen traced the Internet Protocol address to La Crosse and posted the email on Facebook, the Journal Sentinel reported.

Police Chief Jeff Trotnic said Mr. Wendt called the department Monday and was invited to bring in his computer for analysis.