Antigo man facing new charges from 2016 incident seeks disqualification of county DA office

A 34-year-old Antigo man facing new charges from a case involving the sexual assault of a six-year-old at a Woodruff apartment in December of 2016 was in Oneida County court on May 5 for a pre-trial conference.

Nathan Warbalow was arrested Dec. 8 and charged with first degree child sexual assault (sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 13), a class B felony, and causing a child under the age of 13 to view or listen to a sex act, a class F felony. 

The class B felony he’s charged with carries a penalty of up to 60 years in prison while the class F felony carries the penalty of a fine of $25,000, up to 12 years, six months in prison, or both.

Warbalow pled not guilty to both charges on Dec. 17. He was released from the Oneida County Jail on Dec. 15 when his $30,000 bond set by Oneida County judge Mary Sowinski was posted.  

According to the complaint, the two new charges against him stem from the same December 2019 case involving the sexual assault of the six-year-old in December of 2016.

The new charges are also tied into the December 2016 incident and involve the same victim, now 15 years old, who provided authorities with new information regarding the 2016 incident during interviews last October.

In Warbalow’s May 5 court appearance, his attorney Frederick Melms [no affiliation with Melms, Hogan & Francois law firm] informed Sowinski he was going to “be moving to disqualify the Oneida County district attorney’s office.” 

“My client was represented by Mr. (Chad) Lynch in the earlier case that is very, very similar to this one and is uncomfortable with the Oneida County district attorney’s office continuing to be involved,” Melms said. “So we should be filing now within the next day or two.”

“If there is a conflict, we would have to find another prosecutor,” Oneida County district attorney Jillian Pfeifer said. “Since speaking with attorney Melms this morning, I was just going to call Ethics and get their input on it. It’s complicated by the fact that the new case, which has the same victim, is obviously a separate case than the old case, which is the case that attorney Lynch was on.”

Pfeifer, who’s married to Lynch, said she wasn’t a prosecutor on that case but was the assistant district attorney at the time. 

“So I just want to get Ethics’ input on it ... depending on what they say, I may not be contesting the motion.”

A status conference has been scheduled for July 30 at 10:30 a.m. at the Oneida County Courthouse.