By Shereen Siewert
A 38-year-old Wausau man with a history of sexual offenses against children will avoid prison time if he successfully completes three years of probation.
The withheld sentence was issued this month for Jeremy C. Vaughn, who was convicted Oct. 8 of violating the sex offender registry.
Vaughn was arrested in April after a woman told police he held a machete to her throat, beat her and threatened to kill her. Prosecutors then filed charges of first-degree recklessly endangering safety, strangulation/suffocation, battery and disorderly conduct against Vaughn.
On Sept. 30, Circuit Judge Suzanne O’Neill rejected a prosecutor’s motion to admit a victim statement in the case, online court records show. A plea hearing was held a week later, when all but the sex offender registry violation charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement, and read into the record at sentencing.
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.
As part of the plea agreement, Reserve Judge Jill Falstad ordered Vaugn to maintain absolute sobriety and attend Marathon County Probation Review hearings.
The next hearing for Vaughn is Nov. 19.
