Replies

more on Hesslink, from BFPress

Dog Team Tavern owner pleads no contest to sex charge

Published: Saturday, July 29, 2006
By John Briggs
Free Press Staff Writer

Christopher Hesslink, 42, of Monkton, the owner of the Dog Team Tavern in New Haven, pleaded no contest July 21 to a misdemeanor sex charge involving a former employee.

Hesslink was originally charged with sexual assault, a felony, but the Attorney General's Office, which prosecuted the case, unexpectedly reduced the charge to a single misdemeanor count of lewdness in return for Hesslink's plea. He was fined $100 and instructed by District Court Judge Matthew Katz to donate $1,000 to a community organization involved with sexual assault issues. A $15 "victim's restitution" charge was also imposed.

The girl who made the complaint said she was assaulted May 14, 2005. The Free Press does not identify victims in sexual assault cases.

She told state police that Hesslink assaulted her in the tavern's upstairs office at about 9:45 p.m. as she sat on the floor counting out the night's receipts, according to an affidavit. She said Hesslink pushed her to the floor, straddled her, and assaulted her. When she began screaming, she said, Hesslink "looked surprised at her face" and allowed her to leave, the affidavit said.

Hesslink denied to police that he had assaulted the girl, though he admitted earlier sexual contact with her that he described as consensual but which stopped short of intercourse.

Hesslink, speaking by phone from the Dog Team Tavern, said he was glad the case was over but was critical of prosecutors and the police investigation.

"They don't care what happens to people," he said. "I don't think they look objectively at a case. There was no physical evidence -- just the word of one person."

Robert Keiner, Hesslink's Middlebury attorney, said Hesslink's defense "all along, was that it didn't happen, period."