Men acquitted on charges of showing boy porn, assaulting his sister
By Vicky Wedig
SLN staff
After less than two hours of deliberating, a jury Wednesday found two Lake Geneva brothers guilty of sexually assaulting a boy they knew in Pell Lake five to seven years ago.
Brady T. Schoonover, 22, and Tayler A. Schoonover, 24, were found guilty of five counts of sexual assault of the boy but were acquitted on charges of showing the boy pornography and sexually assaulting his sister.
Brady Schoonover was found guilty of three counts of first-degree sexual assault – one of them for having sexual contact with a child younger than 13 years old and two of them for having sexual intercourse with a child younger than 12 years old. Each conviction carries a maximum sentence of 60 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced April 2.
The first charge stems from forcing the boy to masturbate him when they shared a home in Pell Lake; the second results from forcibly requiring the boy to perform oral sex on him; and the third stems from anally penetrating the boy.
Brady and Tayler Schoonover were found not guilty of causing a child to view or listen to a sex act and exposing genitals to a child. The first of those charges stemmed from allegations that Brady and Tayler Schoonover showed the boy a DVD of adults having sexual intercourse, a pornographic magazine and a picture on Brady’s Schoonover’s phone of Brady’s girlfriend performing oral sex on Brady. The second stemmed from Brady and Tayler Schoonover requiring the boy’s sister, now 19, to undress, bend over and expose her genitals during a game of truth-or-dare at a home in the Town of Springfield when the girl was about 6 years old.
Tayler Schoonover’s defense attorney Melissa Frost told the jury that to find Brady and Tayler Schoonover guilty on those charges, it must have evidence that the Schoonovers showed the boy pornography or required the girl to show her genitals to derive sexual gratification for themselves or degrade the boy or girl. Frost said the state made no attempt to prove that element of those crimes.
Tayler Schoonover was found guilty of two counts of first-degree sexual assault, having sexual contact with a person younger than 13 years old. Both of those charges stem from forcing the boy to masturbate him. Each carries a maximum sentence of 60 years in prison. He also is scheduled to be sentenced April 2.
In total, the men face a combined 300 years in prison – 180 years maximum for Brady Schoonover and 120 years maximum for Tayler Schoonover.
See next week’s Southern Lakes Newspapers including the Lake Geneva Times, Genoa City Report and Delavan Enterprise for the full story including attorneys’ closing arguments.
