Former Rochester Man Charged in 1986 – Convicted in 2018
Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) - A guilty plea was entered today in Olmsted County Court in a decades-old sex abuse case.
65-year-old Stephen Bratrud admitted to a second-degree criminal sexual conduct charge through a plea agreement that resulted in the dismissal of a first-degree charge. Bratrud was accused of sexually abusing a young girl over a period of ten years, beginning when she was about 5-years-old. He was charged in the case in 1986 but fled before he was arrested.
Bratrud was finally apprehended in Texas in April on the still active 32-year-old arrest warrant and was brought to Rochester to face the charges. At the time of his arraignment, Olmsted County Attorney Mark Ostrem said it’s believed Bratrud was living in Bolivia before he made the trip back to the U.S. this spring.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on August 20th.
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