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Shortly after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge Friday, Daniel Rottier said his recent battle with cancer had led to drinking and possibly his attack on his wife with a cane earlier this month.
Dane County Circuit Judge William Hanrahan accepted the plea and ordered the president of Habush Habush & Rottier SC to go through the county's Deferred Prosecution Program, which is generally offered to defendants with no previous criminal record. If Rottier fails to complete the program, Hanrahan said, he could be sentenced to up to nine months in jail and forced to pay a fine of up to $10,000.
In a brief mea culpa statement, Rottier said he was diagnosed last year with dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma, a particularly aggressive type of cancer. Rottier said medical literature describes the prognosis for those who contract the cancer as being "dismal."
"Although," he said, "I'm hopeful I'm in the minority that survives."
In offering the plea deal, Josh Bowland, a Dane County assistant district attorney, also asked for the lifting...