Attorney shortage plagues Noriega-Avila

Pedro Noriega-Avila, a man accused in the rape of his former stepdaughter, still remains in jail and without an attorney more than a year after he was brought back to Shawano County after an attempt to leave the United States.

Noriega-Avila faces one count of first-degree child sexual assault of a child under age 13, two counts of sexual assault with someone under age 16 and two counts of incest with a child by a stepparent. Noriega-Avila faces a maximum of 40 years in prison and $100,000 fine for each of the incest and the latter two sexual assault counts. For the child sexual assault in 2010, he faces up to 60 years in prison.

The criminal complaint states that Noriega-Avila allegedly went into his former stepdaughter’s room between September 2009 and June 2010 and assaulted her. It goes on to say that additional incidents occurred in 2014 and 2015. Noriega-Avila married the victim’s mother on July 9, 2010.

Noriega-Avila was initially arrested in 2016 in connection with the crimes, but then he fled the state and was not discovered until April 2021, when he tried to cross the border to Mexico by way of Arizona. He was brought back to Wisconsin in August 2021.

Shawano-Menominee County Circuit Court Judge William Kussel Jr. said at a Sept. 1 hearing that he received a report from the public defender’s office that more than 2,800 attorneys have been contacted to take on the case, but no one has accepted. Kussel said, as he has said in previous hearings, that there is a shortage of attorneys available to take on criminal cases.

“Don’t take that personal,” Kussel said to Noriega-Avila through a Spanish-language interpreter. “It’s not you. There’s just a lot of need for attorneys and not a lot of attorneys taking cases in the northwoods.”

Kussel said he has spoken with the director for the public defender’s office and has requested that this case and others should be reviewed for expedition in the hopes of resolving the attorney problem.

The next status conference will be at 8:30 a.m. Oct. 6 in the Branch II courtroom.

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com