By Shereen Siewert
Trial dates have been set for a 38-year-old Wausau man with a history of sexual offenses against children who allegedly held a machete to a woman’s throat, beat her and threatened to kill her.
Jeremy C. Vaughn faces charges of first-degree recklessly endangering safety, strangulation/suffocation, battery and disorderly conduct in a case filed April 12 in Marathon County Circuit Court. He remains jailed on a $50,000 cash bond.
A three-day jury trial is set to begin Oct. 11.
The charges were filed after police on April 10 encountered a woman who reported that Vaughn, who she knew as “Rush Perez,” brandished a 15-inch machete, held it to her collarbone, forced her to move into the passenger seat of her SUV and drove around while repeatedly striking her in the head with his fist. The alleged victim told police Vaughn stopped the vehicle on South 12th Avenue, threatened to kill her, took her cell phone and got out of the vehicle. At that point, the woman said, she got into the driver’s seat and raced toward her apartment to pack her things, fearful that he would return and kill her.
Vaughn, who previously lived in Milwaukee and goes by the alias “Rush Perez,” is a registered sex offender but did not notify Dept. of Corrections officials of his Wausau address, court documents state.
In 2016, Vaughn was charged in Milwaukee County Circuit Court amid allegations that he engaged in various acts of sexual intercourse with a friend’s daughter before and after her sixteenth birthday. Prosecutors charged Vaughn with one count of second- degree sexual assault of a child younger than 16 and three counts of sexual intercourse with a child age 16 or older. As part of a negotiated settlement, Vaughn pleaded guilty to amended charges of of exposing genitals to a child, a Class I felony, and one count of fourth-degree sexual assault, a Class A misdemeanor. He was ordered to spend 30 months on probation and register as a sex offender, according to court records.
A motions hearing is set for Wednesday in the case.
