DOJ employee charged with sexual assault of a child stemming from prior work as a school resource officer
MADISON – An employee of the state Department of Justice was formally charged Monday in a child sexual assault case stemming from his time as a school resource officer in Sun Prairie.
Lamont Crockett, 34, was arrested last month and released on a signature bond. He was charged Monday with sexual assault of a child by a person who works or volunteers with children, child enticement and exposing a child to harmful material.
Crockett is currently on unpaid leave from his job as a Medicaid fraud investigator with DOJ's Division of Criminal Investigation, a DOJ spokeswoman confirmed Monday afternoon. According to a criminal complaint filed Monday in Dane County Circuit Court, Crockett has been employed by DCI since 2021.
Crockett served as a school resource officer in the Sun Prairie School District from 2018 to 2020. He is accused of having had sexual contact with a 16-year-old student during that time.
According to the criminal complaint, the victim told Sun Prairie police that Crockett had "put him on a pedestal, manipulated him, gave him alcohol and slept with him." The victim said he reported Crockett because the officer had told him he was sleeping with other children.
The victim said Crockett had started by flirting with him, then took him to movies, gave him White Claws and beer to drink, performed oral sex on him and said he loved him. The victim said he had been in a bad place, taking drugs and drinking, when Crockett noticed him and stepped in as a mentor figure. He reported the assaults taking place several times at Crockett's residence.
The victim "stated at one point he asked Crockett what would happen if he told anyone about them and Crockett told him he wouldn't kill him if he didn't tell anyone," according to the complaint.
Police noticed similarities between the first victim's story and another case involving Crockett and a 14-year-old student. The 14-year-old had bonded with Crockett during a mental health crisis and also reported drinking alcohol at Crockett's residence, but did not report any sexual contact.
Contacted by a Madison Police detective on Aug. 9, Crockett admitted to spending time outside of school with the 16-year-old victim but denied having sexual contact other than a kiss he said the victim initiated.
He told the detective he thought he had been doing a good job serving as a mentor to young Black men.
“I picked the f-----d-up kids to try and mentor,” Crockett told the detective.
Pressed further, Crockett admitted that the 16-year-old victim had slept in his bed multiple times and they had cuddled. He also said they had wrestled with each other and would be "aroused" while doing so.
Eventually, Crockett said the two had masturbated together and that he had performed oral sex on the teen, but not vice versa. He said he thought the teen had graduated by the time those activities took place.
Detectives found that Crockett had been suspended for three days following an investigation in 2020.
"Crockett and the police department mutually agreed that Crockett would immediately step down from the School Resource Officer position" in December 2020, and he started working as a second-shift patrol officer after leaving his position with the school.
Detectives spoke with a woman who said she noticed Crockett's photo and the charges against him on the Dane County Jail inmate list on Aug. 10 and recognized him as her 14-year-old son's "Big Brother" mentor. She said Crockett's body language had been strange and he made sexual jokes, including about penis size.
The woman said her son had shared several troubling incidents with her, including an attempt by Crockett to touch his genitals in a restroom. This victim also said Crockett had once pulled out his penis while they were in a car together and had shown him and another teen sexually explicit photos and videos, including of Crockett having sex.
The woman told police Crockett had contacted her via text message referencing the investigation and claiming he did nothing wrong.
Interviewed by police, the woman's son said Crockett had told him no one would believe him if he talked about what happened, and that he would be a "snitch."
The woman told police her son "has recently been shutting down and feeling uncomfortable in everyday life."
If convicted on all three charges, Crockett could face more than 34 years in prison. He has been ordered not to have contact with any of the victims, witnesses or their families, and not to have any unsupervised contact with minors. A status conference for the case is scheduled for Oct. 9.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ex-Sun Prairie school resource officer charged with assaulting child
