Chagnon pleads not guilty to child trafficking

All of the pending felony cases the Oneida County district attorney’s office has filed against Albert J. Chagnon have reached the pretrial conference stage now that the convicted sex offender has entered not guilty pleas to the nine counts of possession of child pornography and one count of child trafficking filed on Oct. 8.

Chagnon, 42, entered the pleas during a brief appearance before Judge Mike Schiek Nov. 8.

He previously entered not guilty pleas to felony charges filed in three other separate complaints. 

Those charges include failure to update sex offender information, encouraging a probation violation (involving an allegation he helped another convicted sex offender obtain a phone) and felony bail jumping.

The other three complaints were filed between January and August.

According to the district’s attorney’s office, the trafficking charge is related to explicit chat conversations Chagnon allegedly had with someone in Europe regarding arranging a commercial sex transaction involving a very young girl. 

In addition to the chats, the district attorney’s office has alleged that approximately 93,000 images of suspected child pornography were found on Chagnon’s phone. 

According to the criminal complaint, the state learned about the phone in question when Chagnon called a roommate and asked him to get rid of it.

“Just take it and get it out the room,” he told the roommate, according to the complaint. “You know what I mean.”

Investigators later located the device while executing a search warrant for Chagnon’s bedroom.

The complaint filed in October also includes a modifier indicating the state intends to ask for Chagnon to be placed on lifetime sex offender supervision if convicted.

The decision to request lifetime supervision is noteworthy as Chagnon’s current sex offender registration term is set to elapse in less than two months.

A long history

Chagnon has been back in Rhinelander since the fall of 2022 when he completed a sentence for violating prison rules during an incarceration on previous possession of child pornography charges.

After the Rhinelander Police Department issued an alert to the public in advance of Chagnon’s return to the community, the River News noted that the Department of Corrections offender locator website indicated that Chagnon would remain under Department of Corrections supervision for just over a year (until Sept. 21, 2023) and will no longer have to register as a sex offender as of Jan. 8, 2025.

According to the police department’s press release, Chagnon was first convicted of possession of child pornography back in 2003. He also has convictions for failure to maintain sex offender registry in 2010, failure to update sex offender information in 2013, violating state/county institution laws in 2014 and battery in 2018.

The 2014 case involved Chagnon clipping hundreds of photos of young girls and keeping them in a notebook while he was an inmate at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution.

According to court records, as Chagnon was being processed for discharge from prison, officials found a notebook containing photographs of fully clothed girls that he had clipped from The Lakeland Times and other publications.

Some of the photos were accompanied by written commentary of a graphic nature.

Following discovery of the notebook, Chagnon was charged with 23 felony counts of intentionally photographing a minor without consent and four counts of violating state/county institution laws. However, an appeals court later ordered the dismissal of the felony counts, agreeing with Chagnon’s defense attorney that those counts fell under the statute that prohibits sex offenders from “intentionally capturing a representation” of a minor without the written consent of the child’s parent, legal guardian or custodian.

Chagnon’s attorney argued that “intentionally capturing a representation” means Chagnon would have had to have produced the photos himself using a camera or recording device. 

In its written decision, the appeals court said the Legislative Reference Bureau’s analysis of 2005 Assembly Bill 251, which was the source of the statute under which Chagnon was charged, states: “This bill prohibits persons who are required to register as sex offenders from intentionally photographing, filming, or videotaping any person under the age of 17 unless the parent, custodian, or guardian of the person under the age of 17 provides written consent.”

In addition, Chagnon did not store the “data” of the visual representations because that would have entailed digital storage, the court noted.

Following the appeals court ruling, Chagnon entered no contest pleas to three misdemeanor counts of violating state/county institution laws (as a repeater). 

The fourth count was read in for sentencing purposes. 

A Winnebago County judge sentenced him to one year in prison followed by one year of extended supervision, to be served consecutively, with credit for 394 days served. 

He completed that sentence in the fall of 2022 prior to his return to Rhinelander.

Chagnon remains incarcerated in the Oneida County jail in lieu of $100,000 cash bail. 

Pretrial conferences in all four pending cases are scheduled for 3 p.m. on Jan. 21, 2025.

Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].