MONROE — A judge has ordered a New Glarus teen to serve eight months of probation/sentence withheld after facing potentially years in prison on multiple felony sexual assault charges.

In 2023, police had alleged that Nolen Bodenstein, then 18 but now 19, blackmailed an underage high school girl into having sex with him multiple times and exchanged explicit pictures of himself with two other teens. He was charged with 17 counts in the case — a mixture of felonies and misdemeanors.

No contest pleas were entered in the case Thursday, Sept. 19.  Those pleas were on count 5, felony threats to commit derogatory info; count 6, felony third-degree sexual assault; and count 12, felony expose child to harmful material. 

As a result of the plea agreement, the court found him guilty on Counts 5, 6, and 12. But Counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 were dismissed but read in to the criminal record, including felony charges of exposing a child to harmful material, felony child abuse, and attempted possession of child pornography.

Authorities were alerted to the cases by New Glarus High School and police responded there in November 2022 to begin the investigation. Bodenstein was a teaching assistant at the high school and played on the hockey and golf teams. According to a criminal complaint filed in Green County Circuit Court, Bodenstein would befriend the underage girls, even after he turned 18, and urge them to send him nude pictures of themselves. Some of the conversations were initiated on the SnapChat social media app. 

In one such case, he allegedly threatened suicide to get a girl to send him the pictures, and reportedly placed a gun to his head. Once he received explicit images from one such victim, he reportedly forced her to have sex with him multiple times in his car. If the victim did not comply, he threatened to distribute the explicit images of the victim throughout the school. 

Bodenstein’s sentence in the case was approved before Judge Faun M. Phillipson in Green County Circuit Court. As part of the sentence, the defendant was ordered “cooperate with, participate in, and successfully complete evaluations, treatment and counseling deemed appropriate …” by the court.

Bodenstein must also be on the sex offender register list for 15 years and have no contact with the victims. Further, he is to have no contact with anyone under the age of 18 except for “accidental contact” or by permission from the probation department.