CHILTON — When parents send their children to daycare, they have confidence that it is a safe environment. For those whose children attended the Circle of Friends Learning Center from late 2022 to early 2023, that trust was violated, Calumet County Circuit Court Judge Carey Reed said.
Trevor Schutt, a 31-year-old Shawano man on the sex offender registry, regularly attended the Menasha Care Center while also out on bail for an ongoing case of possession of child pornography in Shawano County. Criminal complaints show Schutt visited the center in late 2022 to early 2023 while his then-girlfriend, 28-year-old Azucena Martinez, worked there.
On Monday, Reed sentenced Schutt to four years in prison and six years of extended supervision for two cases in Calumet County related to violating the terms of the sex offender registry and the terms of his bond in the ongoing child pornography case. Between those two cases, Schutt pleaded guilty to three felonies, one of which involved misdemeanor bail jumping for being around children at the child care center.
As part of a plea deal, a charge of identifying himself by a name other than that on the sex offender registry was dismissed.
“When you were present, those children were not safe,” Reed told Schutt before imposing his sentence.
Martinez was convicted of five felonies related to Schutt’s cases, including three for child neglect. She was sentenced in August to 30 days in jail and four years of probation.
No children were directly harmed by Schutt’s visits to the center, according to criminal complaints. Reed said he heard from a parent who was “visibly shocked” after learning Schutt was visiting the center.
Schutt said he was on the run when he visited the childcare center
Schutt has been on the sex offender registry since he was convicted in Shawano County in 2012 of multiple charges related to having sexual relations with two underage girls when he was 17 and 18. He served five years in prison and five years on extended supervision.
In March 2021, while under extended supervision for those cases, he was charged with more than 60 counts of possession of child pornography in Shawano County. This case is still ongoing, with a status conference set for January 13.
Because he violated his extended supervision, Schutt returned to prison between March 2021 and November 2022. Schutt was told a motion had been filed to change his bond. He contacted attorneys, the sheriff and more, trying to understand what could be going on, he said. Out of fear of going back to prison, he cut off his GPS bracelet.
“He was definitely doing something wrong at the time,” Schenk told the court.
Schutt was sentenced in September in Shawano County to two years in prison and three years of extended supervision for two felonies related to the removal of his tracking device and one misdemeanor count of violating the sex offender registry. Two other bail jumping charges were dismissed.
Schutt said he was on the run after cutting off his bracelet. Martinez, with whom Schutt was in a relationship, recorded him, Schenk told the court.
Multiple employee witnesses said Schutt would wait to enter the center until the person responsible left that day, according to criminal complaints. He had a code to get in, Calumet County Assistant District Attorney Heather Highland said during Monday’s sentencing hearing.
During Martinez’s sentencing hearing, Reed said he believed Martinez knew of Schutt’s conviction history when she let him into the center.
A video taken in mid-January 2023 that police found on Martinez’s cellphone showed Schutt at Circle of Friends riding his bicycle while three toddler children were present, according to a complaint. One employee said they believe Schutt was once briefly alone with children when Martinez stepped outside, according to the complaint.
After a parent raised concerns with a Circle of Friends owner, who was not named, in January 2023, they told Martinez that Schutt could no longer be on the property. Shortly thereafter, Martinez quit, according to the complaints.
In mid-May 2023, the owner of the Circle of Friends contacted the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office stating that they had information about Schutt, who had an active warrant for his arrest at the time.
The center was later closed, but Circle of Friends owner Kay Wiegert said the center’s closure occurred for reasons unrelated to Schutt’s visits to the center. She declined to comment on the case.
The center was also fined $500 by the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, the regulatory agency for licensed child care centers in Wisconsin. At the time, DCF’s website said the fine was for having a visitor who was not allowed to have contact because of his criminal history, but DCF did not directly mention Schutt or Martinez.
Schenk had requested that Reed give Schutt a sentence equivalent to the two-year prison sentence he is already serving in the Shawano County case related to the removal of his GPS monitor.
“There is no evidence whatsoever that he tried to come in and offend children,” Schenk told the court.
Highland painted a different picture.
“The writing is on the wall,” Highland said. “It is clear why he wanted access to the center, and not because he wanted to play with children.”
The judge sided with Highland and ordered that Schutt’s sentence in Calumet County be consecutive to any other sentence.
The Post-Crescent’s Kelli Arseneau contributed to this report.
Madison Lammert covers child care and early childhood education across Wisconsin as a member of the Report for America corps based at The Appleton Post-Crescent. Send an email to contact her mlammert@gannett.com or call 920-993-7108. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy a tax-deductible donation to Report for America.
This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Sex offender sentenced for visiting Menasha child care center
