A bill introduced by Republican lawmakers would define grooming in state statute and make it a felony crime in Wisconsin — something its author says the state needs to draw a red line for potential child predators.
“Oftentimes, predators who are engaged in grooming a child for future sexual activity know exactly where the line is between a crime and something that’s in the gray area,” State Rep. Amanda Nedweski told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”
The move to criminally define grooming comes after a September Cap Times’ report that found more than 200 educators have been investigated for sexual misconduct between 2018 and 2023.
News with a little more humanity
WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” newsletter keeps you connected to the state you love without feeling overwhelmed. No paywall. No agenda. No corporate filter.
Nedweski — a Republican who represents an Assembly district that stretches from Lake Geneva to Pleasant Prairie and includes parts of Kenosha County — pointed to the case of Christian Enright, a Kenosha teacher who was convicted in July for interactions with one of his students.
“You can see photos where he sent pictures of himself, maybe without his shirt on or making flirtatious faces to a 13-year-old child, over a period of time,” Nedweski said. “Or he would ask her to send photos back where it was not exposing parts of the body that would make it a crime, but definitely crossing major professional boundaries and engaging in immoral conduct.”
Although there was plenty of evidence to prove the teacher was grooming, Nedweski said, police “didn’t have a crime that they could charge him with other than disorderly conduct.”
Enright was charged with 22 counts of disorderly conduct and pleaded guilty to 15 counts. In July, he was sentenced to more than a year in jail. Nedweski’s bill would make grooming a felony and require those convicted of it to register as sex offenders.
“We need an actual crime of grooming to make sure that we can give law enforcement the tools they need and prosecutors the tools they need to to put these predators away and to make sure that the victims get justice,” she said.
Nedweski’s proposal — co-written by state Sen. Jesse James — states: “No person may engage in a course of conduct, pattern of behavior, or series of acts with the intention to condition, seduce, solicit, lure, or entice a child for the purpose of engaging in sexual intercourse or sexual contact, or for the purpose of producing, distributing, or possessing depictions of the child engaged in sexually explicit conduct.”
Jill Underly, Wisconsin’s school superintendent, made her first extended public remarks about the Cap Times article on Tuesday, in a news conference and in testimony to the Senate’s education committee. Underly said her department will create a comprehensive, public database where people can find which teachers have had their licenses revoked or surrendered and why.
Underly also told lawmakers that the Department of Public Instruction needs more funding to modernize its system and track alleged predators.
“The department needs resources to improve its licensing system,” Underly told the committee. “A modernized platform will make information more transparent, easier to access and faster to process.”
Nedweski found her pleas disingenuous. “It wasn’t until the Cap Times article came out that they even started saying that this was an issue. So forgive me if I don’t take the request very seriously.”
But Nedweski said that she hopes Underly will support her proposed bill and that they can work together to address the problem. “I want to work together with Dr. Underly on this,” Nedweski said. “I think that’s something that we can all get behind.”
