Man accused of sexually abusing teen and keeping her in dog cage gets time served
A Georgia man who pleaded guilty to cruelty to children for sexually abusing a runaway teen girl and holding her captive will not have to go back to jail.
Michael Wysolovski, 33, of Duluth was sentenced last week to served time of eight months in jail, followed by nine years and four months of probation, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. He also will have to register as a sex offender. The Washington Post, People, WSOC and WSB-TV also have coverage.
Wysolovski pleaded guilty to first-degree cruelty to children for causing excessive pain during sexual intercourse and to interstate interference with custody. He was accused of holding the teen in a locked bedroom and dog cage.
The North Carolina teen testified that she has tried to die by suicide three times since she was rescued by law enforcement. She has mutilated herself, hoping to become unlovable so no one else would hurt her. “The second I left my home my life was ruined,” she told the court.
The FBI found the teen after she told a person on an anorexia forum about her situation. Wysolovski had met the girl on an anorexia forum when she was 15. She left home and moved in with Wysolovski when she was 16, which is the age of consent in Georgia. Georgia law allows prosecutions for child cruelty, however, when the victim is 17 or younger.
Prosecutor Michael DeTardo said during the plea hearing that the girl and Wysolovski agreed to enter into a bondage relationship that involved simulated nonconsensual sex, according to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution story. But Wysolovski didn’t follow the agreed-upon rules and used physical violence, including biting, DeTardo said.
At first, the teen encouraged Wysolovski to control her eating, but he later used food to punish and coerce the girl, DeTardo said.
DeTardo said it would be risky to take the case to a jury because their relationship involved a “gray area” of consent. As part of the plea deal, prosecutors dropped charges of rape and aggravated sodomy.
The girl’s parents said they feared that a trial would traumatize her. Sex-offender registration was a priority for them.
Judge Timothy Hamil refused to classify Wysolovski as a first offender, which would have erased the criminal plea after his sentence was completed. “I don’t see any emotion from you. I don’t see any remorse from you,” Hamil told Wysolovski.
Wysolovski was sentenced the same day that a school bus driver in Watertown, New York, was sentenced to 10 years of probation for raping one of his passengers, a 14-year-old girl who agreed to go to his home. The New York Times and the Watertown Daily Times covered the sentence.
The defendant, Shane Piche, 26, had pleaded guilty to third-degree rape, which carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison.
Susan Estrich, a law professor the University of Southern California, told the New York Times that Piche’s plea agreement effectively blamed the 14-year-old victim.
