Saturday, July 5, 2025
Friday, July 4, 2025
Thursday, July 3, 2025
Burlington man charged with sexual assault of a child
Caroline Neal
BURLINGTON — A 36-year-old Burlington man has been arrested in connection to an alleged sexual assault of a child.
Jesus Osorio was charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child with the use or threat of force or violence.
The maximum sentence upon conviction is a term of imprisonment up to 60 years.
Online court records show Osorio’s cash bond was set at $100,000 during a Tuesday hearing at the Racine County Courthouse.
He is scheduled to appear in court July 9 for a preliminary hearing.
According to a criminal complaint, the Burlington Police Department began investigating after receiving a report of an alleged sexual assault involving Osorio and a teenage girl.
The girl alleged Osorio assaulted her when she was at his residence.
According to the complaint, Osorio told investigators with the Burlington and Lake Geneva police departments the girl “initiated the encounter.”
Mount Pleasant man arrested after FBI investigation
Caroline Neal
MOUNT PLEASANT — A 38-year-old Mount Pleasant man was arrested after the Federal Bureau of Investigation notified the Racine County Sheriff’s Office of an investigation regarding the distribution of child sexual abuse materials.
Matthew Wefler was charged with one count of repeated sexual assault of the same child, one count of incest with a child, seven counts of child sexual exploitation and three counts of causing a child under 13 to view/listen to sexual activity.
Online court records show that Racine County Court Commissioner Alice Rudebusch set Wefler’s cash bond at $250,000 during a hearing Tuesday.
Wefler is scheduled to appear in court July 9.
According to a criminal complaint, the FBI notified RCSO on June 24 of an investigation regarding the distribution of child sexual abuse material and a child sexual assault involving Wefler.
The FBI reportedly found “hundreds of pages” of chat messages in which Wefler and a man in Texas exchanged and discussed sexual content involving young children and Wefler’s dog.
The criminal complaint states Wefler’s cell phone and computer are still being investigated.
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Civil War-era law doesn't ban abortion, Wisconsin Supreme Court rules
MITCHELL SCHMIDT
Marking a major win for abortion rights advocates across Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a split decision repealing the state's Civil War-era law that had widely been interpreted as a near-complete abortion ban.
The 175-year-old law was deemed unenforceable following the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established abortion as a constitutional right, but remained in state statute. In the summer of 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson overturned Roe, leaving Wisconsin's 1849 law, which lists killing a fetus as manslaughter unless the procedure was conducted in order to save the mother's life, on the books.
But in a 4-3 ruling, the Wisconsin Supreme Court's liberal majority ruled the 1849 law had been "impliedly repealed" by a host of changes enacted by the state Legislature in the years that followed Roe, including a 1994 state Supreme Court ruling that found the law only applied to somebody killing a fetus by assaulting its mother, not abortions.
"Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit seeking a declaration that (state statute) — a statute dating back to 1849 that criminalizes the intentional destruction of an unborn child — does not ban abortion," Justice Rebecca Dallet wrote in the majority opinion.
"We conclude that comprehensive legislation enacted over the last 50 years regulating in detail the 'who, what, where, when, and how' of abortion so thoroughly covers the entire subject of abortion that it was meant as a substitute for the 19th century near-total ban on abortion," Dallet wrote.
Dallet was joined in the ruling by her liberal colleagues, justices Ann Walsh Bradley, Jill Karofsky and Janet Protasiewicz. Conservative justices Annette Ziegler, Rebecca Bradley and Brian Hagedorn dissented in the ruling.
Writing in dissent, Ziegler offered a scathing review of the decision, which she called "a jaw-dropping exercise of judicial will, placing personal preference over the constitutional roles of the three branches of our state government and upending a duly enacted law."
"The majority’s analysis is fundamentally flawed, and the majority is compromised when it comes to the issue of abortion," Ziegler wrote.
After Roe was struck down, Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul asked a Dane County Circuit Court judge to declare the 1849 law didn’t apply to abortion. Kaul argued the law conflicted with later, more permissive abortion laws and court decisions.
In December, Dane County Judge Diane Schlipper concurred, finding that the law only applied to feticide.
Attorneys for Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski, a Republican, asked the state Supreme Court to rule on the matter. Urmanski has said he believes the law, which is titled “Abortion,” also covers the procedure.
But members of the court’s 4-3 liberal majority said the law has been overtaken by subsequent laws and doesn’t allow for a host of circumstances, including pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, fetal abnormalities or when the health of the mother is in danger.
Dallet noted in the ruling the Legislature "as the peoples’ representatives, remains free to change the laws with respect to abortion in the future."
Wisconsin Democrats quickly praised the decision, with Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, calling it "a critical step forward."
"I look forward to working with my colleagues to bolster the fundamental healthcare rights of Wisconsinites and to ensure they have access to the reproductive healthcare they need," he said.
Rep. Lindee Brill, R-Sheboygan Falls, accused the court's liberal majority of handing down "a reprehensible, partisan decision."
"Judges should make decisions based on the law and the facts of the case, not their personal political opinions," Brill said.
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Monday, June 30, 2025
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30-year-old accused of repeated sexual assault of a child
Caroline Neal
RACINE — A 30-year-old Racine man was arrested after Homeland Security Investigations Milwaukee received a tip from Dutch authorities regarding the production and distribution of child pornography through Teleguard, a messaging app.
Nelson Roberts-Smith is facing one count of repeated sexual assault of a child and one count of incest.
The criminal complaint from the Racine County Sheriff’s Office said Roberts-Smith is also under federal investigation because of “the international dissemination of child pornography and the production of child pornography.”
Online court records reflect Racine County Court Commissioner Alice Rudebusch set a $250,000 cash bond during a hearing Friday.
Roberts-Smith is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing June 11.
According to the criminal complaint, RCSO began working with the Department of Homeland Security on June 4.
A Dutch investigator acting as a confidential informant communicated with a user “Fantastic,” later identified as Roberts-Smith.
In the chat, Roberts-Smith reportedly sent the confidential informant a video of Roberts-Smith sexually assaulting a young child.
On June 4 at around 6:56 p.m., officers conducted a traffic stop during which Roberts-Smith was arrested and his phone was seized. He allegedly told officers he knew of Teleguard but declined to provide more information.
When searching Roberts-Smith’s phone, investigators reportedly found the same video exchanged with the confidential informant through the messaging app.
Investigators also found multiple chats — one with more than 600 members — in which Roberts-Smith discussed the abuse and sent child pornography to other users.
From: https://journaltimes.com/news/local/crime-courts/article_5da9db7c-5667-4671-9641-973ac3b566f6.html
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