Judge orders forfeiture of $20,000 cash for former Boyceville man charged with child assault

By LeAnn R. Ralph

MENOMONIE  —  A Dunn County judge has ordered the forfeiture of $20,000 cash from a $55,000 cash bond posted by a former Boyceville man charged with sex crimes against young children.

Charles Huff, the attorney for Ted Lopez, appeared in Dunn County Circuit Court before Judge Rod Smeltzer September 11 and said he did not know the whereabouts of Lopez, age 39, and that he had not had any contact with Lopez since the end of June.

Lopez failed to appear in court July 17, and Judge Smeltzer issued an arrest warrant and set a bond forfeiture hearing.

The warrant is still outstanding, noted Dunn County District Attorney Andrea Nodolf, who asked the court to order the forfeiture of the $55,000 cash bail that had been posted.

Lopez is charged with multiple felony counts of the repeated sexual assault of the same child (with at least three violations of first degree sexual assault); child enticement with sexual contact; exposing a child to harmful material; child sexual exploitation (videos; records; etc.); causing mental harm to a child; causing a child less than 13 years of age to view or listen to sexual activity; and possession of child pornography.

Santiago Lopez, Ted Lopez’s father, signed for the cash bond along with Ted Lopez.

Judge Smeltzer asked Santiago Lopez if he knew the whereabouts of his son.

Santiago Lopez, who attended the court hearing and asked to make a statement to the court, said he did not know the whereabouts of Ted Lopez.

Santiago Lopez said he and his wife had left their native country three years ago to come to the United States to help Ted Lopez take care of his daughter.

Lopez was separated from his wife and had obtained complete custody of his daughter, Santiago Lopez said.

Ted Lopez went to work early in the morning and had to wake his daughter up at 4 a.m. to take her to a babysitter, and in addition to waking up that early, going out in the cold during the winter so early in the morning was not good for the child, who then had to leave for school at 7:30 a.m., Santiago Lopez said.

Santiago Lopez said he had put up $30,000 of his own cash for Ted Lopez’s cash bail and had borrowed $25,000 from a couple in this area who are close friends of Santiago Lopez and his wife.

Limited income

If Ted Lopez were sitting in jail, he would not be able to work, and helping him to post the cash bail seemed like the best solution, Santiago Lopez said.

The family has a limited income and must take care of the girl and to pay for living expenses, such as food and the mortgage, he said.

Judge Smeltzer asked if Mr. Lopez had expected Ted Lopez to show up after the $55,000 cash bail had been posted.

“Yes,” Santiago Lopez replied.

And were the Evensons aware of what the money was for? Judge Smeltzer asked.

“Yes,” Santiago Lopez said, adding that they had supplied the cash out of concern for him and his wife.

Judge Smeltzer said he advises parents who want to post a cash bond for their children to be aware of the risks involved.

High cash bonds are set for a reason, because the offense is serious, the defendant is at risk for fleeing and not showing up for court, or the defendant can be perceived as a threat to the community.

During a May 22 court hearing, Judge Smeltzer added a $5,000 cash bail to the $50,000 cash bail set in a previous case.

$100,000

In the first of the Dunn County cases involving sex crimes against children, bail was set at $50,000 in October of 2016. Lopez posted the cash bail on January 11.

Lopez was in custody at the time of the May 22 court hearing.

According to online court records, Lopez posted $3,750 in cash toward bail June 13 and posted $1,250 in cash June 15.

Dunn County District Attorney Andrea Nodolf had asked for a $100,000 cash bail at the May hearing on top of the other bail amounts.

At the September 11 court hearing, Judge Smeltzer said it appeared that he had not set the cash bond high enough.

Santiago Lopez posted cash because of family ties and love for his son, and the neighbors put up cash out of the “goodness of their hearts,” Judge Smeltzer said.

In Judge Smeltzer’s opinion, neither Santiago Lopez and his wife, nor their friends, had a good understanding of what they were doing.

Judge Smeltzer ordered the forfeiture of $20,000 cash and ordered the remaining $35,000 cash bail to remain until Lopez is apprehended.

Young boys

According to the criminal complaint in the second of the two cases involving young boys, between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2014, Lopez allegedly committed repeated sexual assault involving the same child, Victim #2, in the Village of Boyceville.

The alleged victim was nine years old at the time of the last sexual assault.

Court records list Lopez’s current address as Tainter Street in Menomonie.

On August 30, 2016, while executing a search warrant at Lopez’s home in Menomonie, a computer was seized. In addition to a number of documents that identified Lopez as the owner of the computer, the hard-drive also contained 3,000 images of child pornography, according to the complaint.

During a forensic interview at the Chippewa Valley Child Advocacy Center in Eau Claire, the boy said he was five or six years old when Lopez showed him pornography on a tablet computer.

The boy described a variety of inappropriate sexual contact that allegedly occurred, including anal and oral intercourse.

Lopez was convicted of felony possession of marijuana in September of 2014, and Nodolf is invoking a section of state statute that would increase the prison time for Lopez, if convicted, because he is a repeat offender.

Nodolf also is seeking to place Lopez, if convicted, on lifetime supervision as a serious sex offender.