Seymour resident Lawrence J. Fields is still waiting on an attorney after being charged more than six months ago with first-degree sexual assault with a child under 13 and exposing his genitals.
Early in the case, Fields told Shawano-Menominee County Circuit Court Judge Katherine Sloma that some of his relatives are working on finding a lawyer for him, and he’d be hiring one once he got paid in late September. However, Sloma noted that he qualifies for a public defender, and despite the state office continuing to inquire, one has not yet been appointed to Fields’ case.
The lack of attorneys for handling cases like sexual assaults and homicides has been a problem for years in Wisconsin, and sometimes the public defender’s office has to contact more than 1,000 attorneys before finding one to represent defendants in court. Fields’ next status conference will be at 1:30 p.m. May 26 in Branch I at the Shawano County Courthouse.
The criminal complaint alleges that Fields touched the 6-year-old victim around Labor Day at a home on County Road Y in the Town of Belle Plaine. The victim’s mother said she asked Fields, her uncle, to watch the victim while she went to Clintonville to clean a house. The mother, who said she was gone about 90 minutes that day, said Fields is one of the few relatives still speaking to her, and he’d watched the victim on previous occasions.
While away, Fields allegedly touched the victim around her breasts, buttocks and private parts, according to the complaint. When Fields allegedly exposed his genitals, the victim became scared and ran outside, coming back inside later, at which point Fields allegedly told the child that she could not tell anyone about what happened.
The home had two cameras, but one was off because the mother did not turn it on via her cellphone, and the other was disconnected, but the mother told a deputy neither she nor her daughter had disconnected the camera.
Two days later, a Shawano County Sheriff’s Department detective interviewed the victim and found her to be credible. A monitored phone call was made to Fields after that, according to the complaint, where he denied any sexual contact or exposure but offered to help pay for any counseling for the victim.
Fields was later arrested by Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department officials and transferred to Shawano County’s custody.
Fields remains in the Shawano County Jail on a $25,000 cash bond.
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
