DARLINGTON — Another member of the Amish community was sentenced for sexual abuse of young family members Oct. 2 in Lafayette County Circuit Court.

Benjamin Esh Allgyer, 32, Mineral Point, is the third and final defendant to be sentenced out of a trio of Amish men charged with incest and child sexual assaults.

The cases are not directly related. The men did not commit abuses together, however they were charged at the same time in 2019 after an investigation into depression among local Amish women turned up evidence of child sexual assaults going back decades.

In August, 37-year-old Elam Stoltzfus Allgyer of Darlington was sentenced to one year in jail, with Huber work-release privileges, and five years on probation for assaults committed between about 1999 and 2009.

In July, 26-year-old Elmer Esch Stoltzfus of Cuba City was sentenced to three years on probation.

At the hearing Oct. 2, Benjamin Esh Allgyer pleaded guilty to four counts of incest and two counts of repeated sexual assault of the same child, all felonies. Related charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal.

He also entered an Alford plea to a third-degree sexual assault charge, which his attorney explained was at his recommendation because the victim, though “mentally slow,” did consent. An Alford plea is a type of guilty plea in which the defendant still claims innocence.

According to the criminal complaint, Allgyer told a Lafayette County detective “the sexual assaults he was involved in (were) brought to the Amish church elders’ attention because one of the Amish women has been dealing with depression and the elders could not figure out why. Benjamin stated it was learned the woman had been sexually assaulted as a child and Benjamin’s name was mentioned as a possible suspect.”

Allgyer eventually admitted to his father, a church bishop, that he had committed several sexual assaults in the past.

He told the detective he wanted to confess “as he has lived with guilt as a result of his actions.” He gave details of committing assaults that included intercourse beginning when he was 14 and continuing until he was 26 or 27.

The assaults Allgyer and the other men described all occurred one-on-one when each was able to get alone with a girl. For some of the younger victims, the assault was preceded by a game like “mom and dad,” “dog,” “hide-and-seek” or “hide under a blanket.”

A small number of the assaults were described as consensual, but the majority were either forced or committed while the girl “cooperated” or “just stood there,” in one man’s words.

“These were not isolated incidents,” District Attorney Jenna Gill said at the Oct. 2 hearing. Allgyer showed a pattern of moving from one young victim to the next, she said.

It was serious enough to warrant an 18-month prison term, she said.

As at the prior two sentencing hearings, Gill expressed her concern that Amish don’t take sexual abuse seriously and the victims had minimized the impact it had on them.

“They are taught to be forgiving ... (but) just because these people are forgiving doesn’t mean they haven’t been impacted,” she said.

Robert Duxstad, Allgyer’s defense attorney, argued that Gill was “almost dismissive” of the victims and had failed to consider the totality of the circumstances.

“I think the strength of the Amish community is their ... support for those who have committed sins. But they only support those who have admitted their sins, and then they forgive them. But they don’t abandon them,” Duxstad said.

If we weren’t in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, he added, the courtroom would be filled with up to 150 Amish community members.

“What does that do in terms of pressure on a defendant? It means he has 300 eyes on him. Not two eyes of a probation agent that he sees once a month,” Duxstad said, adding that the Amish elders “do not condone one iota what Mr. Allgyer did.”

Duxstad recommended a sentence of six months in the county jail. Allgyer has six children with a seventh on the way and taking him away from his wife, family and community to go to an out-of-county prison was excessive, Duxstad said.

When provided the opportunity to speak in court, Allgyer apologized for what he did and asked the court to give him a chance.

Judge Barbara McCrory noted Allgyer’s limitations: an eighth grade education and no sex education. Allgyer had gleaned everything he knew about sex growing up on a farm watching animals.

But, “you understand that what you did 15 years ago was wrong,” McCrory said, noting that a lot of people who commit child sexual abuse never accept responsibility. She also noted that he tested at a low risk of reoffending and she praised him for being honest and forthcoming with police, even if he only did so years after the abuse occurred.

She ordered a sentence of four years on probation and nine months in jail with Huber work release privileges. Allgyer must register for life as a sex offender and continue in rehabilitive counseling.