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Sexual misconduct charges filed against Wyoming man |
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Wednesday, 19 December 2007 |
Cliff Buchan
News Editor
A Community Education teacher in ISD 831 has been hit with two felony criminal sex conduct charges for alleged sexual incidents with a juvenile female from Wyoming who was his student. The incidents are alleged to have started last spring and continued until late in November.
Ladislao Enriquez, 48, of 24803 Kettle River Blvd. in Wyoming Township, is the subject of a formal complaint filed in Washington County District Court on Wednesday, Dec. 19.
The victim was 15 and a student at Forest Lake High School when the incidents began. She has since turned 16.
Enriquez has been charged with two felony counts:
•Criminal Sex Conduct-1st degree for engaging in sexual penetration with another person at least 13 but less than 16 years of age, and said defendant being more than 48 months older than the victim and in a position of authority over the victim;
•Criminal Sex Conduct-3rd degree for engaging in sexual penetration with another person at least 16 but less than 18 years of age, and said defendant being more than 48 months older than the victim and in a position of authority over the victim.
Enriquez was arrested by Forest Lake police on Monday and booked on probable cause findings in the Washington County Jail in Stillwater.
He made an initial court appearance on Dec. 19 and bail was set at $100,000. He was also ordered to surrender his passport.
His next court appearance was set Jan. 4, 2008 in Stillwater.
Case details
The criminal complaint filed against Enriquez documents a series of alleged incidents dating to last spring.
According to the complaint, Enriquez was a guest in a personal law class at Forest Lake High School where he spoke on the topic of self-defense. The complaint said Enriquez met the youth at the class and she agreed to register for a self-defense class that Enriquez was teaching through Community Education in the Forest Lake district.
The youth told police the self-defense class was important to her because she had been a victim of a previous sexual assault more than two years earlier and the incident went unreported, the complaint said.
Sexual encounters followed, the complaint said. In the complaint, the youth said she told Enriquez she was 15-years-old.
The complaint documents “numerous incidents” of both intercourse and oral sex between Enriquez and the youth. The youth estimated there were between “20 and 30 incidents involving sexual penetration,” the complaint said.
The complaint alleges the incidents took place on or before July 24, 2007. The incidents are alleged to have taken place in a van owned by Enriquez in the parking lots at Forest Lake Elementary School, the Central Learning Center, Forest Lake High School and at the victim’s home in Wyoming and at Enriquez’s home in Wyoming Township.
The last documented incident took place two weeks before the victim and her family went to the police, the complaint said. The youth said in the complaint that she said nothing of the sexual incidents to her parents because she was scared.
The youth told police that Enriquez told her “he loved her” and if she told anyone about the relationship, “he would go to jail for a very long time,” according to the complaint. The youth also stated that Enriquez told her “he was willing to wait until she was 18 so that he could marry her.”
According to the complaint, the youth said she and Enriquez would communicate by text message with cell phones that he had given her.
In the complaint, Enriquez denies having any sexual contact or inappropriate contact with the victim and stated he was “trying to help her through some tough times as she had disclosed to him a previous sexual assault.”
Enriquez acknowledged in the complaint that he met the youth at the high school class last spring and that he had given her cell phones to share text messages with her.
Police effort
Because of the two-county areas of jurisdiction, Forest Lake Chief of Police Clark Quiring said the case will be investigated in both counties and charges are also possible in Chisago County.
During the arrest of Enriquez on Dec. 17, police executed a search warrant and seized three computers and a cell phone as part of the continuing investigation, Quiring said. Officers from the Wyoming Police Department and the Chisago County Sheriff’s Office teamed with officers from Forest Lake for the arrest and execution of the search warrant.
If convicted, Enriquez could face 30 years in prison and a $40,000 fine for the first-degree charge and 15 years in prison and a $30,000 fine on the third-degree charge.
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