After a two-year delay local billionaire Curt Johnson will go to trial in July for allegedly touching his stepdaughter inappropriately for several years.
But, the girl at the center of the case most likely will not testify now that the state Supreme Court has reversed itself and is now upholding a lower court ruling.
In short, the girl is refusing to release her medical records for even an in camera review. Defense attorneys want her barred from testifying unless she releases the records, and prosecutors want the judge to force the release for the review.
Racine County Circuit Court Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz in 2012 ruled that the girl could withhold her records but she would also be allowed to testify. The appellate court reversed Gasiorkiewicz, but the state’s high court sided with the circuit court before that decision was challenged by Johnson’s defense team. After a review of the case, justices reversed themselves, and prosecutors Wednesday asked for a trial date.
Johnson was charged in March 2011 after he told a therapist in Arizona that he’d inappropriately touched his stepdaughter. That person reported the alleged confession to the Racine County Department of Human Services, and they launched an investigation. Johnson plead not guilty in April 2011, and his 2012 trial was postponed while Gasiorkiewicz’s original decision wound its way through the courts after both sides appealed it.
The abuse reportedly began when the girl was in sixth or seventh grade and lasted a few years. According to Johnson’s criminal complaint, he touched the girl in several occasions, kissed her and asked her to have sex with him. She is now 18 and lives in North Carolina with her mother.