From The Chicago Sun-Times:
MADISON, Wis. — Prosecutors in Sheboygan County thought they had this one nailed.
After deliberating for just half an hour, a jury found 44-year-old Mitchell Pask guilty of trying to lure a 9-year-old girl to a park shelter for sex.
But after the verdict was read Wednesday, Judge Timothy Van Akkeren stepped in. In a rare move, he overturned it and found Pask, who was convicted of sexual assault in 1992, not guilty. The reason?
He said the park shelter wasn’t secluded enough to satisfy Wisconsin’s child enticement statute.
The reversal left prosecutors beside themselves Thursday. They spent the morning on the phone with the state Justice Department trying to line up an appeal and drumming up media coverage.
”I’m like, come on,” District Attorney Joe DeCecco said. ”We convinced the jury this was a good case. We were going to get a sexual offender off the streets. It’s disappointing. It’s frustrating. I’m upset.”
Pask’s attorney, George Limbeck, said the shelter consists of four poles and a roof and lies just yards from a constantly traveled road.
”The judge did what was right. The judge in essence followed the law, given the facts of this case,” Limbeck said.
A ruling overturning a jury verdict in a criminal case is fairly rare in Wisconsin but does happen, said Marquette University law professor Janine Geske. ”I’m sure it was a tough decision for him and not one he relished making, but that’s what judges are sworn to do — uphold the constitution and the law,” she said.
According to a criminal complaint, the 9-year-old girl was in a Sheboygan’s Worker’s Park with her friends this past June. Pask walked by, carrying a beer and smoking a cigarette.
He remarked ”Look at those sexy little salty girls” and told the 9-year-old he had candy for her. He then motioned her to follow him to the shelter. The girl refused, and police captured Pask in the park.
He was charged with child enticement, a felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
But the wording of Wisconsin’s child enticement statute is explicit, prohibiting someone from luring a minor into a vehicle, building, room or secluded place.
So, because this pervert might have gotten caught while savagely raping a 9 year old the judge throws out the jury verdict. Correct me if I’m wrong but even if the park shelter was “just yards” from a trail where people are, the perp thought it was secluded enough to try to lure a little girl so it was in his mind secluded. The intent was there and the shelter must have at least semi-secluded because Pask thought he could take a girl of nine there and drink beers with and do who knows whatever else without raising suspicions.
This seems like another case of some judge, likely a pervert himself or at least sympathetic to perverts, looking for an excuse to let this child rapist walk. Maybe he wants to get on the O’Reilly Factor?