One at a time unless they are a cult please.
Tony the Twister faces more charges
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/283129
Mike Miller — 4/24/2008 6:34 pm
More charges were filed Thursday against the children’s performer known as Tony the Twister, and there is a likelihood of more charges in the offing, an assistant district attorney said.
Anthony Stelter now faces three more counts of having sex with children.
“There is a distinct possibility there will be further charges,” said Assistant District Attorney Michael Verveer, “relating to other victims that the state will be filing as well.”
Stelter, 39, who was living at 53 Lakewood Gardens before his arrest last week, was in court again Thursday to face the latest charges — that he sexually assaulted girls who were friends of the family from 2003 to 2005. Verveer said during bail hearings late last week and again on Monday that various agencies were investigating still more cases in which Stelter could be accused of sexually assaulting girls in their early teens.
Stelter often performs as a magician and as a balloon artist who shapes balloons into animals for children and is known as Tony the Twister. As part of bail set Monday, Stelter was forbidden from performing his balloon act for children, and as part of his bail set Thursday, he was prohibited by Dane County Criminal Court Commissioner Todd Meurer from putting on any kind of performances for children.
Among other events, he performed at a Christmas party for members of the District Attorney’s Office and their families last year, courthouse sources said.
Stelter first came to the attention of law enforcement officials when a girl told a school psychiatrist on April 11 that she had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by Stelter, starting when she was 13. That led to an intense police investigation by several jurisdictions as other girls came forward with similar claims or detectives learned of other possible victims.
In a search of Stelter’s home, police turned up both cocaine and marijuana, and he was initially charged with two misdemeanor counts of possession of those drugs. Later he was charged with assaulting the first girl who spoke with the school and law enforcement, and he faces a possible sentence of life in prison on that charge, which also carries a minimum mandatory sentence of 25 years behind bars. In those two cases a total of $7,000 cash bail was set.
In Thursday’s court action, Stelter faces one count of repeated sexual assault of a child and two counts of having sexual intercourse with girls who were under the age of 17.
According to a criminal complaint, one of the girls, now 20, told detectives that when she was 17 she was at a party at Stelter’s house with several other young girls, and Stelter gave them all beer. The complaint says the victim woke up the next morning in his bed with no clothes on, and one of her other friends at the party told the victim that the victim and Stelter had sex the night before in his bed. She also said she saw a condom wrapper in the waste basket in Stelter’s bedroom.
That victim said Stelter got her drunk and had sex with her at his home about two weeks later, the complaint says.
The second victim in Thursday’s complaint said Stelter began sexually assaulting her in 2003, when she was 12 or 13 and he would ask her to sit on his lap. She said “she thought Tony loved kids, and it made her feel loved and close to Tony when she would sit on his lap.” But the complaint says he eventually began to fondle her, then increased the sexual assaults and “told her not to tell her parents since he would lose their friendship and/or his job and told her he liked working with kids.”
Verveer, citing the “extremely serious charges,” asked for more cash bail to be set, but Assistant State Public Defender Daryl Jensen said that was not necessary because the total now set on the cases that Stelter is facing is enough to ensure he appears at trial.
Meurer, however, upped the bail by setting $1,000 on each of the two misdemeanors of having sex with girls not yet 18 and $3,000 on the felony charge of repeated sexual assault of a child. The felony count carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison and extended supervision.
The total cash bail for Stelter is now $12,000, and he remained in jail Thursday, unable to post that amount.