Racine County child sexual assault; plea deal reached
Kerry Hughes
BURLINGTON, Wis. - A Sheboygan Falls woman reached a plea deal on Friday, April 26 in a Racine County case in which she was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a child under the age of 13.
Kerry Hughes pleaded guilty to a single charge of first-degree child sexual assault. As part of the plea deal, six other charges against her were dismissed and read into the court record for the purposes of sentencing.
Hughes is scheduled to be sentenced on July 8.
Case details
According to the Racine County Sheriff's Office, Kerry Hughes allegedly sent inappropriate messages and had physical, sexual contact with the child. A forensic interview was conducted at the Child Advocacy Center with the child, which corroborated the allegations. A third party, whom Hughes had confided in, also corroborated the allegations. Information was also obtained that there are possible additional victims, the sheriff's office says.
According to the criminal complaint, the child had been engaging in a texting and sexual relationship with Hughes. The child stated the conversations continued via text, and progressively "got worse." Specifically, the child stated "we started texting, and then I tried to stop, and then I kept, and then I kept going. So then we kept, and then I kept texting, and then it started getting worse and worse. We started talking about bad things and then pictures," according to the complaint. The child told investigators that the "bad texting" included Hughes sending several completely nude photographs of herself.
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According to the complaint, Hughes routinely told the child to delete the photos and contents of their conversations, stating that if the child doesn’t tell anyone, they both won’t get into any trouble.
The child detailed an incident that occurred at Hughes's house. She allegedly instructed the child to come to the bathroom, where she inappropriately touched the child, according to the complaint. The child detailed another incident of inappropriate touching – this occurred in a vehicle.
During the course of this investigation, at least one other child came forward indicating Hughes had texted, soliciting sex.