Sells pleads guilty

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Press Photo by Ashley Martin Kevin Sells, who is charged with gross sexual imposition, pleaded guilty at his pretrial conference Tuesday afternoon.

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A Dunn County man accused of having sexual contact with a young teen pleaded guilty at his pretrial conference Tuesday. Kevin Sells, 41, is charged with gross sexual imposition, a felony, for sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl.

If Judge H. Patrick Weir approves the negotiated plea agreement Sells entered, Sells will serve five years in prison with five years probation. He would also have to register as a sex offender and pay court fees.

However, Weir ordered a presentence investigation take place before imposing a sentence.

“It’s my understanding that Mr. Sells came into sexual contact with, I’ll refer the minor child as Jane Doe, your honor, while Mr. Sells was cohabitating with Jane Doe’s mother,” Ross Sundeen, Dunn County state’s attorney, said at the hearing.

He said the girl’s mother found her daughter in bed with Sells and sexual contact had occurred between them.

“I believed it occurred when Mr. Sells returned home from the bar intoxicated and made his way to the bedroom of Jane Doe,” Sundeen said.

Sells has a criminal record, Sundeen said.

If Weir does not sign the plea agreement, Sells has the right to withdraw his guilty plea, his attorney, Jay Greenwood, said after the hearing.

Paula Johnson, the teen’s mother, was also arrested in connection to the abuse. She was charged with felony abuse or neglect of a child for allegedly allowing Sells to remain in her home and have unsupervised contact with her daughter after she was aware of the sexual contact between them.

Johnson pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquency or deprivation of a minor, a lesser charge, in December as part of a plea agreement.

Johnson’s daughter is reportedly in the custody of her father in a different county.

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