A judge has revoked the deferred entry of judgment (DEJ) agreements that had allowed a Woodboro man to avoid felony convictions in a 2024 case involving a 14-year-old girl and ordered him incarcerated for five years. On Sept. 24, Sawyer R. Schmidt, 20, was sentenced to 10 years in the Wisconsin prison system on a charge of causing mental harm to a child. The sentence consists of five years of initial confinement in prison and five years of extended supervision. On a second count of felony child abuse, Judge Daniel Overbey of Vilas County imposed four years, consisting of two years of initial confinement and two years of extended supervision. The two sentences are to be served concurrently.
Overbey also found that both crimes were sexually motivated and ordered Schmidt to register as a sex offender for 15 years.
“We tried having him out in the community, and it didn’t work,” the judge said. “We will not be going to probation.”
Schmidt has been held in the Oneida County Jail for about 11 months on a $25,000 cash bond in a separate, pending case. In that case he is charged with second-degree sexual assault of a child, felony bail jumping and intentionally pointing a firearm at a person. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges and is presumed innocent. The judge repeatedly stressed that Thursday’s sentence was for the 2024 case only.
“Nothing I’m doing today is sentencing him for the other one,” the judge said.
DEJ revoked
Schmidt was originally charged in 2024 with child enticement and second-degree sexual assault of a child. Those charges were later reduced to causing mental harm to a child, felony child abuse (intentionally cause harm) and misdemeanor battery. He was convicted of the battery count and placed on one year of probation. Under DEJ agreements on the two felony counts, he could have sought dismissal and expungement of the felonies if he completed the terms.
Assistant District Attorney Ben Meyer argued that the terms of the agreements required revocation. Under their terms, a bond violation resulting in a bail jumping charge, or new criminal charges followed by a probable cause finding, violated the agreements.
Defense attorney Mindy Nolan asked the court to continue the agreements. She said Schmidt had completed a year of Department of Corrections supervision under sex offender rules without problems. She also noted that the agreement required the state to prove a violation by a preponderance of the evidence, while the new case had only reached a probable cause finding, “one of the lowest burdens of proof under the law.”
The judge granted the motion, explaining that the agreement was triggered by the bail jumping charge and the probable cause finding, not by any conviction.
ADA: ‘He did it again’
Meyer began his sentencing argument by recounting the facts of the 2024 case: Schmidt exchanged explicit Snapchat photos with the 14-year-old victim, then picked her up in his truck in December 2023, and forced her into oral sex and intercourse. Meyer said the girl reported saying no at least twice while Schmidt held her down. DNA from both was later found on a used condom recovered at the scene. Meyer said Schmidt initially denied any sexual contact and told police he believed the girl was 16 or 17, then changed his account.
Meyer said the original resolution relied on deterrence and a recognition of the defendant’s youth, and that the state’s reliance on those levers “was misplaced.” He acknowledged the new allegations are unproven but argued the court could consider them as they bear on Schmidt’s character.
According to the new complaint, Schmidt met a different 14-year-old girl in September 2024, the same month he was sentenced in the first case. Meyer said that girl alleges the two exchanged nude images and had sexual intercourse while Schmidt was on probation and subject to the DEJ agreements. The girl also alleges that on one occasion Schmidt pulled a gun from his truck’s center console and warned her of consequences if she told anyone.
“The problem is he did it again,” Meyer said.
Defense: Treatment belongs in the community
Nolan asked the judge to impose the state’s recommended prison terms but stay them and place Schmidt on five years of probation. She also asked the court to stay sex offender registration pending future review hearings.
She pointed to character letters from family, friends and a Rhinelander High School teacher who described Schmidt as “teachable.” She said Schmidt was born and raised in Rhinelander, comes from a hardworking family and started his own concrete and snow removal business at a young age. Nolan said a February 2025 evaluation scored Schmidt as a relatively low risk and recommended short-term community-based treatment.
“Prison changes people,” Nolan said. “I think this young man deserves a chance.”
Victim’s father speaks
The victim’s father told the court his daughter was accused of lying by classmates after the 2024 resolution because “nothing happened” to Schmidt. (Judge Mike Schiek ordered no jail time at the original sentencing in September 2024).
“Nobody thought a day in jail was worth raping my daughter,” he said, adding that his child did the right thing in coming forward and her hope was to save another girl from experiencing the same violation. The father attempted to recount the events leading up to the September 2024 sentencing hearing, which occurred during a time when the district attorney’s office was in transition following a judicial election, but Overbey cut him off, explaining the hearing was not the forum for grievances against the district attorney’s office. He then returned to the impact on his daughter.
“She’s a good kid, and she went through something terrible and I just felt like this county just didn’t support her at all,” he said.
‘I’m not the same person’
Schmidt read a prepared statement. He said the past year had been the most difficult of his life.
“I can’t change what happened, no matter how badly I wish I could,” he said. “I’m not the same person I was when I made the decisions that brought me here,” he added. “I know my words will not prove it to you … but instead my actions going forward.”
He said he had spent his time in jail reading and planning. After his release, he said, he wants to return to work, repay his family, help his father with projects and take online business and money management courses.
“I know this caused a lot of pain,” he said. “I’m not asking for complete forgiveness. I’m also not asking people to forget what has happened.”
‘Two paths’
Overbey said he read the character letters in detail and had “absolutely no doubt” they reflected the Schmidt his family knows. He described that version of Schmidt as polite and respectful, like someone out of “Leave It to Beaver.”
However, the judge said there was “a second character here,” and that it was the one he was addressing Thursday.
“What Sawyer has to figure out going forward is which one of those people he’s going to be, because he cannot continue to be both,” the judge said.
The judge said the offense may not be as heinous as homicide, but “there was something killed here in this case. It wasn’t the child, but it was the child’s innocence.”
He read from the criminal complaint that Schmidt deleted all of his messages with the girl right after dropping her off. He called that “consciousness of guilt.”
“That is not a young man who thought he had just had consensual sex with someone he was allowed to have sex with,” the judge said.
Probation, he added, would “unduly diminish the seriousness of the offense.”
Schmidt received four days of sentence credit. The time he has spent in jail since late 2025 is tied to the pending case and was not credited. He made Schmidt eligible for prison programming, but said Department of Corrections rules may bar his participation given the nature of the charges. Schmidt was also ordered to pay court costs on both counts and provide a DNA sample. Any bond money held will be applied to fees and costs.
Immediately after the sentencing, the court called the pending case for a status hearing to schedule either a plea and sentencing or a trial. The judge said the case was too old for anything else. After the attorneys agreed that a trial should be scheduled, the judge was advised that scheduling of the trial could not immediately be completed as courtroom availability would be an issue.
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