The Department of Justice announced Thursday it was concerned about the Dane County district attorney’s lack of action regarding a referral the agency sent detailing a threat made to a lawmaker during the tumultuous weeks surrounding the passage of the budget repair bill.

The Division of Criminal Investigations within the DOJ received 86 complaints of lawmakers being threatened and began investigating Feb. 21. A majority of cases were closed out after investigation, but the DCI sent one case involving a Dane County man who made two separate threats over email to the district attorney office for further review March 18.

As of Thursday, nothing had been done with the referral.

“It is important to note that this department routinely refers investigative reports to district attorneys, including the Dane County district attorney, for their review and charging decisions,” DOJ spokesperson Bill Cosh said in a statement. “This is where the matter currently sits. We are concerned about the lack of action regarding this referral.”

The district attorney’s office did look at the referral, but sent it back due to clerical and administrative errors found therein. The DOJ sent the referral to the district attorney with a criminal history record attached, which the district attorney’s office lost and requested another from the DOJ, Cosh said in an interview with The Badger Herald.

The district attorney’s office also wanted paperwork filled out for each of the 16 emails included in the case instead of having all the emails on one sheet, Cosh said.

He added the DOJ complied with the district attorney’s request immediately.

Andrew Welhouse, spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, did not comment on the lack of action by the DA, but said he was concerned about the death threats and the cases needed to be taken seriously. He added Fitzgerald had been the subject of at least one threat.

“[People making the threats] are using some harsh and specific language about senators and their families and we’ve seen several incidents already with Senator [Dan Kapanke, R-La Crosse],” Welhouse said. “This language is unacceptable.”

The DOJ released the two threatening emails from the case referred to the Dane County district attorney after they had identified the suspect. One discussed a plan to assault the email’s recipient and place bombs in areas the recipient is known to frequent, including their house.

The Dane County district attorney could not be reached for comment.