United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted November 17, 2022*

Decided November 21, 2022 

Before 

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge 

AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge 

JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge

No. 22-1443 

MATTHEW RICHARD, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

WILLIAM SWIEKATOWSKI and 

ANDREW WICKMAN, 

 Defendants-Appellees.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Eastern District of 

Wisconsin. 

No. 20-CV-876 

William E. Duffin, 

Magistrate Judge. 

O R D E R 

Matthew Richard, a Wisconsin prisoner, sued officials and correctional officers at 

the Green Bay Correctional Institution, claiming that they violated his constitutional 

rights by punishing him for writing letters. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. After dismissing some 

of his claims at the screening stage, see 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, the district court entered 

*

 We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. APP. P. 32.1 
No. 22-1443 Page 2 

summary judgment for the defendants on the remaining claims. It concluded that 

Richard lacked sufficient evidence that correctional officers acted with retaliatory 

motives in violation of the First Amendment when imposing discipline for the two 

letters or that Richard’s disciplinary hearing was procedurally unfair. We affirm. 

We construe the undisputed facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and 

draw all reasonable inferences in his favor. Douglas v. Reeves, 964 F.3d 643, 645 (7th Cir. 

2020). At Waupun Correctional Institution, where he was housed before his transfer to 

Green Bay in 2015, Richard was sanctioned for involvement with the Almighty Vice 

Lord Nation, but he asserts that he left the gang in 2012. In the first letter at issue, 

addressed to fellow Green Bay prisoner Frederick Jones in September 2018, Richard 

congratulated Jones on his impending release and promised to connect Jones with 

Kamallah Brelove, someone outside the prison. Richard then wrote to Brelove, his 

friend. In this letter, Richard encouraged Brelove to contact Jones and requested 

Brelove’s help contacting two other “brothers” about a “revenue stream” that he and 

these men were “trying to tap into.” Richard signed both letters, “Mateen Wasi ElShabazz.” 

Green Bay’s Security Threat Group Coordinator, William Swiekatowski, 

reviewed the letters and issued a conduct report to Richard. Swiekatowski consulted 

various sources, including a scholarly article, prison databases, and officials at Waupun. 

He concluded that Richard, Brelove, Jones, and the two other men named in Richard’s 

letters were members of the Vice Lords gang. Swiekatowski also considered an earlier 

letter written by Michael Johnson, another Green Bay prisoner, that laid out plans to 

start businesses to support the Vice Lords. Johnson had written about meeting with 

Mateen Wasi-El Shabazz—Richard, Swiekatowski believed—and discussing business 

plans and communications channels. Swiekatowski concluded that Richard’s letters 

evinced his involvement in gang activity and in business, both of which violated prison 

regulations. See WIS. ADMIN. CODE DOC §§ 303.24, 303.36 (2018). 

Richard responded to the charges by denying any gang involvement and arguing 

that he was merely communicating with old friends; he maintained that Swiekatowski 

took his letters out of context. Richard was found guilty at his first disciplinary hearing, 

but he successfully appealed because he had not been afforded sufficient opportunity to 

present evidence. After a second hearing, Andrew Wickman, the hearing officer, found 

Richard guilty of both charges, and the warden affirmed. 
No. 22-1443 Page 3 

Richard then sued Swiekatowski, Wickman, and four prison officials. The 

magistrate judge, presiding with consent from all parties, 28 U.S.C. § 636(c), screened 

the complaint and permitted Richard to proceed with a First Amendment retaliation 

claim against Swiekatowski and a due-process claim against Wickman for denying him 

access to evidence (a gang-member database) at the second hearing. The court 

dismissed Richard’s claims against the remaining officials because he did not plausibly 

allege their personal participation in the events or their involvement in a conspiracy 

with the other defendants. Swiekatowski and Wickman later moved for summary 

judgment. The district court granted the motion, concluding that Richard lacked 

evidence that Swiekatowski issued the conduct report to retaliate against Richard or 

that Wickman deprived him of due process. Richard appeals. 

We review the decisions entering summary judgment and screening the 

complaint de novo. Crouch v. Brown, 27 F.4th 1315, 1319 (7th Cir. 2022); Schillinger v. 

Kiley, 954 F.3d 990, 994 (7th Cir. 2020). 

In challenging the summary-judgment ruling, Richard first contends that 

Swiekatowski violated his rights under the First Amendment by punishing him for 

writing letters to friends. To bring his case to trial, Richard needed evidence that his 

protected speech was a motivating factor in Swiekatowski’s decision to take a 

retaliatory action against him. Douglas, 964 F.3d at 646. Assuming the letters were 

protected speech, Richard has not mustered sufficient evidence of retaliatory motive to 

raise a disputed question of fact. Swiekatowski submitted evidence that he would have 

issued the conduct report irrespective of any protected speech. See Jones v. Van Lanen, 

27 F.4th 1280, 1284 (7th Cir. 2022). He attested that he wrote up Richard because he 

believed “the letters were communications to gang members plotting ways to raise 

money and start businesses for the Vice Lords.” Richard suggests that the timing of the 

conduct report—just days before Richard’s administrative segregation status was up for 

a regularly scheduled review—is suspect. He infers that Swiekatowski’s true motive 

was to keep him in segregation, and that Swiekatowski misinterpreted the letters as a 

pretext. Swiekatowski maintains that he issued the conduct report to prevent gang 

activity and ensure the safety of the prison. 

This is a disagreement, but it is not a genuine dispute of material fact. Even if 

Swiekatowski was wrong about what the letters meant, there is no evidence that he 

issued the conduct report to punish Richard for communicating with his friends. The 

timing of the conduct report relative to Richard’s regularly scheduled administrative 

review is not relevant to the question of whether there is a causal connection between 
No. 22-1443 Page 4 

the report and the letters. See Holleman v. Zatecky, 951 F.3d 873, 879 (7th Cir. 2020) 

(explaining that causation requires a showing that the fact of plaintiff’s protected 

activity, not the substance, motivated the alleged adverse action). Thus, the First 

Amendment claim fails because Richard has no evidence to dispute Swiekatowski’s 

account of his non-retaliatory reason for issuing the conduct report. 

Richard adds that having Johnson’s letter, which Richard did not author or 

receive, used as evidence against him also infringed his free speech rights. Richard fails 

to explain, however, how the introduction of Johnson’s letter as evidence at his hearing 

curtailed his own First Amendment rights, much less how it trumps the prison officials’ 

legitimate penological interests in monitoring prisoners’ nonlegal mail to promote 

safety. See Van den Bosch v. Raemisch, 658 F.3d 778, 791 (7th Cir. 2011). Neither Richard’s 

constitutional rights nor prison regulations, see WIS. ADMIN. CODE DOC § 303.87(2), 

prohibited the introduction of this relevant evidence at Richard’s disciplinary hearing. 

The district court also properly entered summary judgment against Richard on 

his procedural due-process claim. Richard asserts that Swiekatowski fabricated 

information about the purported gang activity of Richard’s associates in the conduct 

report, and Wickman knowingly used that information to find him guilty at the 

disciplinary hearing. But Richard did not submit any evidence to back up his accusation 

that anything in the report was untrue, let alone fabricated. Because Swiekatowski 

submitted “some” evidence—Richard’s letters and corroborating evidence of gang 

activity—to the hearing officer before discipline was imposed, Richard’s due-process 

rights were protected. See Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 447 (1985); McPherson v. 

McBride, 188 F.3d 784, 787 (7th Cir. 1999). 

Richard also appeals the decision to dismiss his civil conspiracy claim at 

screening, repeating his allegations that various prison officials “turned a blind eye” to 

Swiekatowski’s issuance of the conduct report. But Richard has not shown how these 

officials—John Kind, William Pollard, Dylon Radtke, and Steven Schueler—were 

personally involved. Some of these officials participated in various stages of the 

disciplinary process after Swiekatowski issued the conduct report, but that would not 

make them responsible (whether as supervisors or as administrative reviewers) for 

misconduct, such as retaliation, by Swiekatowski. See Owens v. Evans, 878 F.3d 559, 563 

(7th Cir. 2017); Sanville v. McCaughtry, 266 F.3d 724, 740 (7th Cir. 2001). And Richard did 

not overcome this problem with his conclusory assertion of a conspiracy. To state such a 

claim, he needed to allege facts plausibly suggesting an agreement among the 

defendants to achieve a common purpose of violating his rights. See Redd v. Nolan, 
No. 22-1443 Page 5 

663 F.3d 287, 292 (7th Cir. 2011); N. Highland Inc. v. Jefferson Mach. & Tool Inc., 

898 N.W.2d 741, 747 (Wis. 2017). Nothing in the complaint makes such coordination 

plausible; therefore, the magistrate judge properly dismissed the conspiracy claim. 

We have considered Richard’s remaining arguments, and none has merit. 

AFFIRMED