PEWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
March 13, 2020
By Steven Martinez
After nearly a week of testimony, a Waukesha County Circuit judge has declared a mistrial in the case of a Pewaukee priest accused of sexually assaulting a teen parishioner in a confessional.
The decision Friday from Judge Michael Maxwell comes shortly after the alleged victim’s mother’s attempts to gain legal status to stay in the U.S. became public.
Defense attorneys Jerome Buting and Kathleen Byrne Stilling of Buting, Williams and Stilling S.C. successfully argued that the “late disclosure” of that information fundamentally shifted the defense strategy for their client, the Rev. Charles Hanel — and would have had they known about it from the start.
Hanel is accused of second-degree sexual assault for allegedly groping a then-13-year-old girl as she spoke to him in December 2017 inside a confessional at Queen of Apostles Church in the city of Pewaukee.
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