Law&Crime Sidebar - Teacher Hid Coworker’s Student Sex Crime While Burying Nanny Job Secrets: Cops

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

A major scandal has rocked a Wisconsin elementary school as new details emerge about two fifth-grade teachers. Madison Bergmann faces charges related to sexual contact with a child, while Abigail Faust, initially accused of covering up Bergmann's actions, now faces her own charges as new details about her work as a nanny come to light. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber breaks down the shocking secrets with former criminal prosecutor Dan Schorr.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Protect your family with life insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote at https://ethos.com/sidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. There appears to be something very wrong at a Wisconsin elementary school. Now, we've told you before about Madison Bergman, a fifth grade teacher who resigned after shocking allegations came to light about her behavior with an 11-year-old boy. At the time, we knew a fellow teacher was accused of knowing about the so-called relationship and not reporting it. But now, as we learn more about her, this case has gotten worse. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

There are shocking new details that have come to light about a major scandal at an elementary school in St. Croix County, Wisconsin. You may remember this woman, Madison Bergman, right? She faces nearly a dozen charges related to sexual contact with a child under the age of 13, after she allegedly made out with an 11-year-old boy and carried on a wildly inappropriate messaging thread with him. Now, Bergman, who, by the way, had been set to get married when she was arrested in May of last year, oversaw class of fifth graders at Rivercrest Elementary School. Now, we're going to talk more about her in just a moment, okay? But when all the details about Bergman started coming out, there was another fifth grade teacher, Abigail Faust, who resigned.

Bergman's alleged victim told police that Faust, knew about what Bergman was doing and didn't try to stop it. That alleged victim also revealed that Faust also had inappropriate contact with a student. And according to the New York Post, text messages between Bergman and the boy, of which there are tens of thousands, talk about alleged contact between Faust and another boy when she allegedly pushed him against a wall and kissed on the cheek. Fouse was charged in St. Croix County with failure to protect a child, causing mental harm to a child, child enticement, and sexual misconduct by school staff or a volunteer.

As news of those charges spread, a family in nearby Washington County, Minnesota, just across the border, they realized that was their nanny. That's right. This family had hired Faust back in 2021 to help watch their children, importantly, a baby who was a few months old, a girl who was around nine, and a boy who was 15 when he claims Faust started sexually abusing him. And if that allegation just wasn't heinous enough, the teen claims that Faust also started sleeping with his friend. Because some of the alleged contact between the teens and Faust happened in Wisconsin, Faust now faces 13 more charges. So two counts of use of a computer to facilitate a child sex crime, five counts of second degree sexual assault of a child under 16 years of age,

three counts of child enticement, two counts of exposing a child to harmful material, and one count of causing a child under 13 to view or listen to sexual activity. Now, we got our hands on the newest criminal complaint that was filed against her and honestly, strap in because the details are very, very disturbing. So we want to get into this and to dig into the evidence that the police have compiled so far. I want to bring on back here onto the show, former criminal prosecutor Dan Shored. For anybody who doesn't know, Dan is also leading a sexual misconduct investigation firm that works with schools and educational institutions.

is also an author who has a book that is, unfortunately, very similar to the content that we talk about. Isn't that right, Dan? Yeah, it's called Open Bar and it's about sexual misconduct at educational institutions. This is a wide-ranging issue that I see all the time in my work, and the book tries to show behind the scenes what really happens in these cases, not just what you see in the news. So it's always important to talk about these issues, and I'm glad you're covering them. So, Dan, before we even get into the specifics of this criminal complaint, does it surprise you, does it shock you? that we were talking about two, two alleged predators at one school.

Oh, and that it's what, an elementary school? Right. There's a lot of shocking details here, and unfortunately we see in a lot of cases that when someone does offend, does sexually abuse someone who is a minor when they're a teacher, there's a lot of cases where it's not an isolated situation. If someone feels emboldened to engage in that kind of conduct, I've seen in my investigations both as a prosecutor and as an investigator for college and universities that often there's a history of misconduct. And that's why when there

is one allegation, it's really important for schools to look into and for law enforcement to look into what else has been happening in this person's career. And you also have a separate allegation that this teacher at another school had known about another inappropriate relationship that someone else was engaged with and hadn't properly disclosed that. So there's so much to unpack here. Unfortunately, a lot of disturbing details. You know, as we're talking about this, I have to tell you, I cover crazy stories all day, and I'm not going to lie to you. It really makes me stop and think about myself, my loved ones, family. If something should happen, would my family still be able to cover the big expenses?

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That is, ethos.com slash sidebar. So according to this criminal complaint against Faust, and that's what we're going to talk about, You had a St. Croix, a Wisconsin detective who met with the parents of a boy referred to as victim one. And they disclosed that Abigail Faust had been their nanny a few days a week since 2021. And that their son claimed when he was 15 and she was 24, their relationship took a sexual turn. Victim 1 sat down with the detective for a forensic interview and divulged absolutely sickening details. The criminal complaint reads, I asked victim 1 how he was generally feeling since the initial report of his sexual abuse was made. He stated, kind of gross, that he felt manipulated,

and that he felt kind of used. Victim 1 became emotional, and I could see tears well up in his eyes. He recounted how Abigail, over time, became almost a member of the family. Victim 1 described how she would join the family when they went to their cabin, and more recently joined them on a vacation to the Bahamas. Before the sexual abuse began, he described his relationship with Abigail as normal. She would often sit with him while he played video games, and helped him organize his manga collection. Victim One stated that the relationship changed in December of 2024. Now, Dan, this is interesting, right?

So you're seeing, based on this account, Faust is seeing this teen a few times a week, right? You could say that maybe becoming more comfortable around her, but the onus is on her to keep this relationship professional. He's a child. Would you consider what we've heard so far, normal activities? is the allegation that this would look like grooming? And how do you differentiate between that and just doing her job as a nanny? I mean, that's the line there.

Right. And you flag a lot of important issues there because, first of all, most sex abuse, not all, but most sex abuse that I've investigated involves someone who is in a trusted position. And it could be a trusted person who's a teacher or a coach or a relative or someone who's in some kind of relationship. with who then abuses the privacy of that relationship and takes sexual advantage of another person. So unfortunately, it's not unusual to see a sex abuse case where someone is trusted by a family, put in a position of trust and abuses that trust. I think what makes it more unusual here is you have a 24-year-old woman who is a nanny taking

care of a family. And according to the allegations, then starts a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old. The part where, in hindsight, we could look back at it as grooming, sitting with him, looking through different, you know, details of his life, talking about it. That's something that I think is a family hiring a nanny that you welcome, right? You want the nanny to be part of your family, interact with your family, be supportive of your family. And unfortunately, if these allegations are true, that access to the family led to taking advantage of this 15-year-old boy. And I think it's really important that now as a society, we've reached a point where we do take cases like this seriously when I do take cases like this

involved in underage boy and a defendant who's a woman. It was often seen as this wink, wink, oh, I'm sure he wanted it because he's a teenage boy. And I think now we've recognized as society that this is serious sex abuse, that it can traumatize a young boy, just like it can traumatize a young girl, and it needs to be taken seriously. And that's different than it was a few years ago. So let me go through this a little bit more. So according to Victim 1, he and Faust were going through each other's memories on the Snapchat app. And this is when Victim 1 came across a photo of Faust holding her breasts in a provocative way. She was clothed in the photo, according to the complaint,

but it led to further sexually charged conversations between the two. That's the allegation. And that also allegedly led to more inappropriate messages and photos from Faust where she was wearing lingerie. This is according to the teen. And the victim says that Fouse mentioned multiple times that she knew this behavior was wrong. Quoting from the criminal complaint later,

as her sexual abuse of victim one escalated, victim one recalled Abigail framing it as, you know this is bad, I know this is bad, and we'll both get into trouble if you tell anyone. So when the two allegedly exchanged nude photos on this Snapchat app, he recalled her messaging him, I can't believe I'm looking at a picture of a 15-year-old's genitals. He remembered her also saying through Snapchat, I'm feeling grossed out at myself. Victim one recalled many instances where Abigail would, in summary, voiced to him her realization that she was doing something improper. Now, Dan, knowledge is important in these cases, right?

Compulsion, I don't know what it is. If you know it's wrong, why are you doing it? But awareness, that becomes critical for prosecutors. It certainly is important to show consciousness of guilt, to show awareness, but it's also important to know that these crimes are statutory crimes. Statutory rape is a generic term for when there's an underage person and someone who's over the age of consent

and there's a sexual relationship that is illegal. And in those kinds of cases, it's not a defense generally in the law that the person wasn't aware of the person was younger, although in this case, of course, she was aware. It's really a case that just was their sexual contact between these individuals, was one person underage, and that's enough to make it a conviction. But certainly all the awareness, I think that would go maybe not towards the conviction because a conviction is based on the sexual activity in the ages, but sentencing that someone was aware that it was wrong, that they were doing it further.

I also want to add, I have a lot of investigations with Snapchat, and it's really tough as an investigator to deal with these cases with Snapchat because the messages disappear. It's hard to get them. And a lot of people in these relationships use Snapchat to cover up their communications. Aren't they on the server, though? Like, don't they never really disappear? Well, Snapchat has different responses to different people. Certainly, law enforcement can try to get them. Sometimes they do get them, but certainly for someone making a case to law enforcement where they don't have those records, it's a lot harder. I know as an investigator where I work with schools and they don't have subpoena power, we don't have access to the Snapchat record. So law enforcement can do a lot here, and they're doing it here.

But it's very dangerous the way people are communicating so much over Snapchat in these sexual relationships involving sexual abuse because then you don't have a record where you could show a friend, show a family member, show a teacher, and say, look, here's what's happening because those messages are gone. Real quick, more psychological than anything, if somebody knows this is wrong, why do they keep doing it? That's a great question. I think that criminologists are always trying to figure that out. Sometimes it can be the temptation of being in the relationship with somebody else. And also, people commit sex abuse for various reasons.

Sometimes it's because they were victims of sex abuse when they were younger. Sometimes it's other mental health issues that they feel lonely in their life. lives that they're reaching out to somebody. And sometimes it's about power and control. That's a big motivator in sex abuse cases I've seen where someone likes the position of being in power of control over someone who is a subordinate or someone who's younger or someone who's a student as a teacher. And that's unfortunately a motivator for a lot of people that are committing sex abuse. Let's continue on. So earlier this year, this is when things escalated immensely. And this is when Fowse started spending the night at victim one's home. Okay. This is the new allegation.

quote, on approximately January 17, 2025, victim one recalled Abigail staying over at his house for the first time. I asked him how that came about. He indicated that Abigail would ask him and his sister to encourage their parents on Abigail's behalf. He described Abigail staying over several more times for the next few months. Now, when Faust would sleep over, victim one alleges that they eventually started having sex. He says on one occasion, the condom that he was wearing broke and the two worried about whether Faust might get pregnant and what they would do if she did. But Fouse also allegedly made comments about wanting to be in a committed relationship with him and eventually have children with him.

Now the detective wrote in the criminal complaint, I asked Victim One how he felt about his relationship with Abigail at that time. He said that he felt in summary that they were both in an exclusive and loving relationship. They shared pet names like honey, baby, babe, and sweetheart. Victim One said that there were occasions when he was holding his younger brother. where Abigail would remark that someday he would be taking care of their own child in the same manner. In April this year, Victim 1 and his family, they went on a trip to Florida, apparently, while Faust had been hired to Petsit, but she was allegedly using the family's home for more than just hookups with Victim 1.

She brought one of his friends there, too, according to prosecutors. Victim 1 told investigators that he was worried that Faust might be, quote, cheating on him with another teen based on Snapchat photos that he'd seen of a boy, identified only as victim two, and a woman believed to be Faust. Now, victim two would later tell detectives that while victim one was out of town, he ended up stranded and needed a ride. So he called Faust, and she gave him a ride to his home, and nothing happened then, but the two started meeting up and spending more and more time together

before eventually engaging in sexual intercourse. And victim two told police that he spent the night with Faust at both her home and victim one's home while the family was away. The criminal complaint even alleges that when Faust, found out that victim one had started seeing a girl his own age, she tried to pit the boys against each other, taunting victim one with details about her exploits with his friend. I wish I was making this up, but this is what we're reading. And despite this, victim one claims that their sexual relationship resumed over this past summer when Faust was still nannying for his family.

And in July, the two were nearly caught having sex during a family trip to their cabin. and victim one told detectives he believes his parents were starting to get suspicions about his relationship with Faust. In August, his mother told him that he had to stop hanging out with Faust. He should cut all contact. Victim One says that Faust came to his job, gave him a t-shirt, something that he took as a parting gift. They kissed for the last time. And later that day, Fouse texted him that she had a warrant out for her arrest. That was the warrant for her conduct at Rivercrest Elementary. Now, despite that, the two still continued to say, send messages back and forth.

But when his parents found out about those Wisconsin charges on the news, they fired Faust. First, let's stop there. Dan, where do you want to begin? I mean, my gosh, that is next level. You know, on the one hand, it's so shocking to hear all those details. You weigh the way you lay them out. But also, this is, if you look at it in a more general way, this is typical grooming behavior where someone ingratiates themselves with a family, becomes trusted, becomes trusted by this

person, then abuses that trust, begins a sexual relationship. What we generally don't see is the additional victim who's also a friend of the first boy and then engaging in sexual relations with that person at the family's home. Then you have the other issue at the school. So what you see here, you raised the issue before about why do people do things when they know it's wrong. Well, here, if the allegations are true, it's not just about being tempted by one person. It's about a pattern of misconduct with more than one person.

And it shows that there's not only an awareness of this, but an interest in continuing these types of relationships with more than just this one boy at this family. So that is even more concerning. That's going to lead to, you know, she's facing criminal charges in more than one state. And you could definitely see consecutive time potentially if there's a conviction here. And potential witnesses that would testify against her, right? Because victim one, it apparently confided also in a friend about what had been going on with Faust. And that friend eventually told their parents who apparently told the alleged victim's parents, too, who came to him about it. So you have multiple people who can corroborate essentially, right, what victim one has been saying.

Not only that, but you also, whenever you have more than one victim who is willing to give an account, that's really hard for a defense to attack because you could always attack one person as, oh, they're not credible. They have a motive to lie. But when two different people have similar claims and it's hard to believe that two separate people would come together to fabricate something. And also when they talk about the same pattern of behavior and then there's also the other corroboration you mentioned, that's really challenging for a defense to try to stop from, you know, the prosecution getting a conviction. And victim one's mother also approached Faust herself. Yes, so according to the criminal complaint, the detective said, I briefly conversed with victim one's mother. She told me that

she had called Abigail on August 22nd, 2025 to confront her. She asked Abigail if she had sex with victim one. Victim one's mother said that Abigail would not answer the question and instead stated that it was not a conversation meant to be had over the phone. It's pretty telling, right? Yeah, I mean, usually if you're going to ask someone if they're having sex with your underage son, you would expect the answer to be no. So anything that's wavering from that is not an explicit no would imply you would think that something something is going on, right? Otherwise, you would just say that. So if it's not a discussion to have over the phone, that's pretty telling. And that's important evidence that this mother can testify, that this is, although it's not an

explicit admission, it's tantamount to an explicit admission. And yes, it's an allegation, but my gosh, it's just, it's next level. Now, according to Wisconsin's court records, Faust's preliminary hearing is scheduled for October 15th. She was given a $200,000 cash bond. It's not clear if she's been able to post it. Do you surprise that they put up a bond? And what about in that amount? I'm not surprised. Even though this is really disturbing behavior, there's, you know, we don't know of a criminal record this defendant has. A lot of times the amount is based on whether someone's a flight risk or not, whether they're a danger to hurt somebody else. It's in the news now a lot. So I think the community will be aware of what she's alleged to have done. So it seems

like a reasonable amount. And this is the part where they'll probably get into serious plea negotiations between the prosecution and the defense because there's a lot of evidence here. And most of these cases get resolved through a plea agreement. And enough to go through a preliminary hearing, right, to establish that there's probable cause to move forward with the case. I mean, I think we've laid out a lot of allegations at this point, and there seems to be enough to even move through that stage, right? Yeah, probable cause is a very low standard, and just having one victim alleged that there was sex with someone who was over the age of consent while they were under the age of consent, that's enough to establish probable cause in any form. Okay, so I want to circle back to that original

teacher, right, whose allegations sparked these investigations, Madison Bergman. So she has entered a not guilty plea to multiple child sex abuse charges. And according to a school resource officer who testified at Bergman's preliminary hearing, talking about preliminary hearings, this happened last year, she and an 11-year-old male student shared more than 33,000 messages with each other. Think about that. And some of these skin crawling texts, probably the best way to describe it, they were revealed in court documents. For example, this exchange, victim says, Ha-ha, bro, I just want to make out with you. Bergman responds, I do too, like all the time.

Bergman allegedly responds also today when you said I know you're mad, but I want to kiss you. Oh my gosh, I wanted to grab your face and just push you to the floor and make out with you. Victim responds, ha ha, for real. I love to kiss you on the ground too. Ha-ha. Bergman, I almost kissed you when you were on the ground today, but I got distracted by your stomach.

Now, those texts were apparently in reference to the first time that Bergman had intimate contact with this boy. And according to a criminal complaint when the other kids left the classroom, she approached him and kissed him on the mouth. He described himself as sitting on the ground immediately after the kiss as he couldn't believe that it had happened and the fact that it was his first kiss. He then got up, gave Bergman a hug, and left the classroom to catch the school bus. Now, the victim admitted that he and Bergman had kissed several times. The victim also told the officer about love letters and drawings that he and Bergman, would write to each other. He said Bergman kept all of the sheets of paper and folders. Those folders were found in Bergman's backpack, by the way, in her classroom.

Dan, first of all, I think you're getting just like destroying innocence. I think that's like a good way to describe these allegations. And if this is all true, what effect does this have on someone? Absolutely. If someone is that young and they're in a sexual relationship with a teacher, not only are they too young to be having a healthy relationship of any sort with anybody, but there's someone in authority who's taking physical and emotional and sexual advantage of them, and that's going to make it hard for that person as they grow up to understand how healthy, sexual and romantic relationships work.

It's very, very concerning and disturbing. Another thing is it's really tough from a parent perspective when a teacher violates trust like this because so much of the communication with kids that age is listen to your teacher, do what your teacher says. I have an 11-year-old child and we just got a bunch of instructions from the school for the new school year. And I was just thinking about this the other day

because one of them said, make sure you listen to your teachers. That's what people are always told. And then when your teacher's telling you things related to sexual interactions that are extremely dangerous and inappropriate, for an 11-year-old or anyone who's underage, it's hard to figure out.

Well, I was told to listen to my teacher. How am I supposed to know that this is wrong? And that's why it's really important to talk with children about this. But when someone abuses the trust as a teacher, it makes a lot of confusion in that underage child for them to sort out. And they might not have a family structure where they feel comfortable going to them, getting help, reporting it. There's a lot of shame involved. People don't want to talk to their

parents about sexual interactions at any point in their lives, usually. So there's a lot of complications here that help people get away with this kind of misconduct. Let me ask you about this. So in court, Bergman's defense attorney tried to argue that sexual contact charges against her should be thrown out because while there may have been inappropriate physical contact, neither ever touched the other's genitals. The judge denied that motion, bound the case over for trial. And by the way, Bergman is currently out on bond with strict conditions, like an ankle monitor, orders to stay away from the young alleged victim.

Are you surprised by that? I'm not surprised they're making that argument. I don't think it's a winning argument. There's a lot of intimate contact that goes beyond just touching someone's genitals. Kissing someone could certainly be a very intimate sexual act, touching people in other ways, other parts of the body. I prosecuted a case once where someone was asleep on a train and someone just came up and started kissing them on the mouth with their tongue. And that was a conviction based on sex abuse, even though it wasn't touching someone's, you know, breasts or

genital area. So I don't think that's a winning argument at all. But I'm not surprised that the defense is making that. Maybe they're hoping to reduce the charges or get a better plea bargain by asserting that. Let me tell you, Bergman and Faust, they could face quite some time in prison if they are convicted, but we will continue to monitor it. Dan Shore, thank you so much for coming on. Good seeing you. You too, Jesse. Thanks for talking about this with me. It's a really interesting and important case. And that is all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. Follow me on Instagram X. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll see you next time.

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