While most won’t hesitate to report a crime in Waukesha, many find it difficult to either intervene to stop a criminal act or to act on their suspicions of one’s behavior or conduct. Whether it’s the fear of retaliation from the perpetrator or just a basic desire to not become involved in another’s business, the failure to act by one may not only enable the criminal actions of another, but also compound the suffering of those victims being affected by such actions. When this happens, authorities may often consider the complicit party to be just as culpable as the perpetrator.
A Crandon woman is currently learning this lesson the hard way as she finds herself facing criminal charges in conjunction with her son’s sexual assault case. The son recently pled guilty to multiple felony counts of child sexual assault against several children who the woman looked after as part of her daycare service. She is now also facing charges of neglect as authorities have alleged that she enabled these crimes by leaving the children alone with her son while she went out to run errands.
Cases such as these typically hinge on whether the party accused of enabling the activity did so with knowledge or suspicions that something was happening or whether he or she remained ignorant of the perpetrator’s actions. In any case, authorities will almost always be suspicious of those who live and/or work with one who was engaged in such crimes. Yet that suspicion isn’t enough to assign guilt. Anyone who is potentially facing charges of being complicit of a crime may wish to work with a criminal defense attorney to help prove his or her dissociation with whatever took place.
Source: Wisconsin Law Journal “Daycare sexual assault defendant pleads guilty” Nov. 13, 2013