A 29-year-old Lutheran Reverend in Twin Lakes was charged Monday in Winnebago County Court for crimes associated with an undercover child enticement operation conducted by the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office Internet Crimes against Children affiliate.
According to the criminal complaint, Joshua Scheil, 29 of Trevor, was charged with attempted child enticement, using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime, and causing a child 13 or under to view/listen to sexual activity.
The complaint alleges that in March an undercover Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office analyst was contacted on a teen website by an individual identified as ‘Rev.’ ‘Rev’ indicated he was a 27-year-old white man from Wisconsin. The undercover analyst was identified multiple times as a 13-year-old girl from the Oshkosh area. ‘Rev’ indicated he would be in the Oshkosh area on April 11-13, and would be staying in a hotel. ‘Rev’ sent sexually explicit messages to the undercover analyst and stated several times that he wanted to have sexual relations with her when he came to town. During these messaging sessions, ‘Rev’ also sent an explicit image to the undercover analyst.
On April 12, ‘Rev’ messaged the analyst and indicated he was in town and asked if the undercover analyst, posing as a 13-year-old girl, wanted to meet. A location was sent to the user ‘Rev’. Joshua Scheil arrived at the agreed upon location and was taken into custody. At the time Scheil was arrested, his phone was seized and in plain view on the screen was the open conversation to the undercover analyst.
Scheil is currently being held on a $10,000 cash bond.
The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office has been an Internet Crimes against Children affiliate since January 2015 and in that time has been a part of more than 25 ICAC related arrests.
