By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review
A sex offender previously convicted of raping a 10-year-old child is accused of breaking into a Wausau home and attacking a 14-year-old girl, according to court documents.
The case is the latest involving James Begay, who was granted a withheld sentence for methamphetamine possession earlier this year and was on probation when the new allegations surfaced. The withheld sentence was issued by Circuit Judge Suzanne O’Neill just two months before he allegedly broke into a stranger’s home by climbing through a window, punched the sleeping girl in the head and shoved his hands down her shorts. The girl told police she thought her assailant was going to rape her, according to court documents. She described her alleged attacker to police, who apprehended Begay at a sober living facility after reviewing video surveillance footage.
Begay, who is jailed on a $100,000 cash bond now faces multiple new charges including second-degree sexual assault of a child younger than 16 and burglary.
Begay has a long criminal history dating back to October 2005, when he was convicted in the rape. Because Begay was 16 when he was convicted, he was under the supervision of the Wisconsin Division of Juvenile Corrections in 2010 when he cut off his ankle monitor and sexually assaulted a 19-year-old Wausau woman on the city’s west side.
After his escape in 2010, Begay, then 21, approached a 19-year-old woman in the 700 block of Werle Avenue who was letting her dog out and asked the woman for a cigarette. Court records show Begay then pulled a knife, grabbed the woman around the throat, told her he would kill her if she didn’t stay quiet, dragged her into a neighbor’s yard and assaulted her. The victim told police Begay was about to rape her when a motion-activated yard light scared him away. His discarded ankle monitor was discovered in an alley, according to past media reports, and Begay was captured hours later.
The victim identified Begay from a photo lineup and DNA evidence confirmed Begay was the woman’s attacker. He served five years in prison for the assault before reaching his mandatory release date in 2015.
But months later, in January 2016, Begay cut off his monitor again, this time disappearing for a week before he was apprehended near downtown Wausau.
History repeated itself in July 2019, when Begay cut off his GPS monitor and vanished from his transitional housing location in the 600 block of Jefferson Street. He was apprehended after Wausau Police posted a plea on Facebook asking for tips on his location. Begay went back to prison until November 2020, when he again was placed on active supervision and released in Wausau.
In April 2021 his supervising agent reported that Begay was residing at the Marshall House in Green Bay and would remain there for 60 to 90 days. But he allegedly absconded on May 23 and did not update his address with agents as required by the conditions of the sex offender registry and his supervision.
In August 2021 he was wanted again and was convicted of a sex registry violation.
Begay appeared in court this week on the new charges and is being treated as a serious sex offender. He faces decades in prison if he is convicted.
Circuit Judge Scott Corbett has been assigned Begay’s case. A preliminary hearing is set for Jan. 8.
You are advised that a charge is merely an accusation and that a defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
