A Wisconsin elementary school teacher — already behind bars for failing to report sexual misconduct by a fellow teacher — is accused of assaulting a 15-year-old boy while working as his family’s nanny.
Prosecutors on Friday charged Abigail Michelle Faust, 25, with third-degree criminal sexual conduct with the teen that began in December after she sent him provocative photos.
It is the latest explosive revelation of sexual misconduct by staff at the Rivercrest Elementary School, the news rocking parents and residents in Hudson, a town of 15,000 about 30 miles east of Minneapolis.
In May, Faust resigned from her fifth-grade teaching job at the school after prosecutors charged her in St. Croix County Circuit Court with failing to report sexual abuse by a fellow fifth-grade teacher on another child.
She was also charged with kissing a fifth-grade boy last year in her classroom at the end of the school day.
The fellow teacher, Madison Lynn Bergmann, 25, was arrested in May of 2024 and charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child under age 13. Her case is ongoing.
Bergmann and Faust were friends and had exchanged texts about their interactions with the students, according to court documents reported by the Pioneer Press in St. Paul and the New York Post.
Faust had been a nanny at the 15-year-old’s home since 2021.
The Press reported:
Last week, the teen, who turned 16 this summer, told a Washington County deputy that Faust sent provocative messages to him on Dec. 8 through Snapchat, followed by pictures of herself wearing lingerie. The teen said Faust told him that they both knew what they were doing was “bad” and that they would both get in trouble if he told anyone.
Three days before Christmas 2024, according to the criminal complaint, Faust approached the boy in his bedroom and they “went through the motions of having sexual intercourse without actual penetration.”
Faust told the teen that they could have sex if he did well in the sport he was playing, according to an account of the criminal complaint reported by the Press.
According to the newspaper’s reporting:
Faust first sexually assaulted the teen in early January at her home in Hudson, then twice more that month after she spent the night at his home. “(The victim) explained that during this time period, he believed he and (Faust) were in an exclusive relationship and that (Faust) referenced the two having a child together some day,” the complaint states.
The sexual misconduct continued, police said, occurring approximately twice a week.
When the family went on a trip to Florida and Faust stayed back to take care of the family’s pets, Faust also began a “sexual relationship” with one of the teen’s friends – also a juvenile, according to the complaint.
Faust is currently housed in the Washington County jail in Hudson, apparently unable to make a $200,000 cash bond.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets, which documents one of the worst cases of child sexual abuse in U.S. history, and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
