May 18, 2023 at 2:04 p.m.
Kuehl set to resolve child abuse case with no contest plea
According to court records, Clayton T. Kuehl signed a plea questionnaire on May 15 outlining a plea agreement with prosecutors. A plea hearing is scheduled for May 23 at which time the court will decide whether to accept the agreement and the plea.
The plea questionnaire indicates Kuehl will enter a no contest plea to one count of physical abuse of a child and the state will move to dismiss the other two counts - strangulation/suffocation and physical abuse of a child (repeated acts).
Kuehl was scheduled to stand trial on the charges starting in July.
He has been in custody since the charges were filed on Feb. 22, 2022.
According to the report of a Woodruff police detective, Minocqua Dispatch received a 9-1-1 call from Kuehl at 9:14 p.m. Feb. 19, 2022 reporting his three-month-old son was not breathing. After police and EMS arrived on scene, the child was transported to Howard Young Medical Center and then to Marshfield Medical Center (MMC) in Marshfield. The next day the detective was contacted by a social worker at MMC with a list of the injuries the child had sustained, including severe ischemia (hemorrhage) of the brain, bruising of the body and multiple rib fractures. The detective was also informed that the MMC child abuse specialist felt the injuries were consistent with child abuse, the report states.
An agent from the Wisconsin Department of Justice Department of Criminal Investigation interviewed the primary doctor treating the child, who confirmed that the child "had several significant injuries from different periods of time, some believed to be from two to four weeks prior," the detective wrote in his report. "The injuries were believed, by doctors, to be consistent with non-accidental trauma."
A CT/MRI scan revealed an "anoxic brain injury believed to be from within the last week," the report said. "Doctors believed that injury to be from a lack of oxygen or asphyxiation." The doctor also reported that the child had a "partial skull fracture that showed significant signs of healing" and was estimated to be between two and four weeks old.
In an interview with an Oneida County sheriff's detective and a DCI agent, Kuehl allegedly confessed that he believed the injuries were the result of the way he had handled the child.
"Clayton stated, 'I can say I'm too rough, I've been too rough,'" the officer wrote in his report.
According to the report, during the interview, Kuehl demonstrated actions he referred to as the "routine" for calming the child down when he was crying or fussy. He told the detectives he had been using the "routine" for about five weeks.
"Clayton told investigators he had taken it too far in squeezing (the child) and stated that he had done it in 'a combination of love and frustration,' due to the frustration because (the child) would not calm down. Clayton described feeling rage due to this frustration," the officer wrote.
Kuehl told the investigator that when he performed the "routine" on the child on Feb. 19, the child's arms and legs flailed and then went limp.
According to the plea questionnaire, the state will recommend a 25-year sentence consisting of 15 years confinement to be followed by 10 years extended supervision. The defense is free to argue for a shorter sentence.
The maximum sentence that could be handed down by Oneida County circuit judge Mike Bloom is 40 years in prison.
Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].
Comments:
You must login to comment.