Teen convicted of 2015 sex assault
By Brandi Makuski
A 19-year-old man was convicted on Wednesday of third-degree sexual assault.
Joseph Butler, of Stevens Point, was accused of sexually assaulting an unconscious girl after she passed out during a high school party in October 2015. He pleaded no contest to the charge before Judge Thomas Eagon on March 14.
An additional charge of second-degree sexual assault of an unconscious victim was dismissed as part of a plea agreement with the Portage Co. District Attorney’s Office.
A third charge against Butler, driving a vehicle without consent, was dismissed but will be read in for sentencing.
According to the criminal complaint, Butler, who was 16 at the time, admitted to having sex twice with a girl, also 16, who had passed out “a couple of times” during the party on the 3000 block of Minnesota Avenue.
The girl was seen the following morning at St. Michael’s Hospital, at time which the police were notified.
The victim told police she’d been drinking cherry-flavored vodka at the party, the complaint said, and when she woke the next morning her arms and pubic region were sore. She told police she couldn’t remember everything that happened the night before, but did remember saying, “no, no”, according to the complaint.
Witnesses from the party told police the girl was seen stumbling and falling as she tried to walk, hitting her head on the ground at one point. She was later carried into a bathroom because she was sick, and then taken to a bedroom to sleep, where a friend at the party thought she had locked the door.
Witnesses later told police Butler was seen entering the girl’s room.
Butler also admitted he and another boy took the girl’s car, while she was asleep, sometime between midnight and 3 a.m. Butler told police the other boy, who was identified in the complaint only by his initials, drove the car recklessly by “speeding, taking corners fast and being an idiot”.
The girl discovered Butler’s SPASH identification card in her vehicle the following day.
Butler faces up to 10 years in prison. He returns to court for sentencing on May 24.
