Madison Bergmann, 24, was arrested in April after the fifth grader’s parents reported her to River Crest Elementary School administrators and police.
On Thursday, September 12, Bergmann, who was dumped by her fiancé following the allegations, claimed that the charges should be thrown out because the boy’s text messages weren’t specific enough to prove how they touched each other, the New York Post reported.
Bergmann showed up to court with her father and looked downcast after a judge refused her request.
During the motion hearing, more intimate messages between the disgraced teacher and student revealed that she allegedly said she wanted to ‘lick’ the boy’s abs and that she liked touching his chest.
In one of the recently revealed text messages, the boy allegedly wrote: ‘You were touching my chest a lot.’
Her attorney, Joseph Tamburino, argued that his client’s behaviour does not mean she sexually assaulted him because the fifth grader used the word ‘chest’ when describing their contact with each other.
‘The basis of this motion is that there’s not probable cause in the complaint, in one specific area, and that’s the area of “sexual contact of intimate part”,’ Tamburino said.
‘Under Wisconsin statutes, there has to be touching of an intimate part in order for there to be sexual contact. What are those parts? The breast, buttocks, anus, groin, scrotum, penis, vagina, or pubic mound of a human being. The statute does not say it’s the “chest” or the “chest area”,’ he added.
The judge quickly decided that her attorney’s argument would not change his mind on Bergmann’s charges.
‘It would be absurd to require a child to use the same language that the state legislature has chosen for our statutes,’ the judge replied.
The judge proceeded to read more texts between the 24-year-old and 11-year-old, as one read: ‘I love having my hand on your chest. I could feel your heart beating so much hahaha,’ Bergmann allegedly sent the boy.
On April 29, the boy’s mother overheard a phone call between Bergmann and the victim, leading her to raise the alarm.
In one text, Bergmann told the boy that she ‘wanted to just grab (his) face and push (him) to the floor and make out with (him),’ the complaint stated.
In another text, she allegedly wrote, ‘I almost kissed you when you were on the ground today, but I got distracted by your stomach.’
His father confiscated his phone and discovered sexually charged text messages between Bergmann and the student.
In response, the student allegedly said: ‘Haha it was beating so fast. I was so surprised and I loved it because you just kept kissing me.’
‘When everyone was cleaning after reading, I was standing at the front and you were too, and I touched your chest,’ she allegedly wrote. ‘When I grabbed your shirt and I pulled you into me, oh my goodness…I want to lick your abs haha.’
The judge ultimately ruled that the word ‘chest’ does not excuse Bergmann from being charged with sexual assault.
Although Bergmann was initially charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child, she was hit with additional charges, including using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime, exposing a child to harmful descriptions, two counts of child enticement and five counts of sexual misconduct by school staff, according to court records.
The ex-teacher was set to wed her partner Sam Hickman in July, but the plans were scrapped due to what Hickman has described as ‘f***** up behaviour’ by his now ex-fiancé.
‘It’s been indefinitely postponed,’ a friend of the couple told the New York Post. He’s really, really hurt. Not talking too much about it, just like “This is f*****d up”. He’s still in shock. Not only did she cheat on him, but she cheated with a little kid.’
She has pleaded guilty to all charges and is expected to appear in court on October 7 for her preliminary hearing. Bergmann faces up to 178 years in prison if convicted.
