After prison release, Benson, Minnesota, man to serve year in jail for sexual contact with children
Jun. 9—BENSON
— A Benson man has been sentenced to a year in the Swift County Jail for having sexual contact with two children in 2019 and 2020.
Luke Adam Frank, 33, is currently in the Minnesota Correctional Facility at St. Cloud, serving a sentence of a year and a day for failing to register as a predatory offender. He has been required to register for more than a decade, and the requirement is for life.
Frank was sentenced June 1 in Swift County District Court to a consecutive sentence of a year in jail with credit for six days already served. He was also ordered to pay $140 in fines and court fees.
He pleaded guilty to two reduced charges of gross misdemeanor criminal sexual conduct.
Frank's anticipated release date from prison is Jan. 30, 2023. He will serve the year in the Swift County Jail after that.
Under Minnesota law, offenders are required to serve at least two-thirds of a sentence in custody and may be allowed to serve the remaining time on supervised release.
Frank had been charged in January 2021 with eight felony charges of criminal sexual conduct for having sexual contact with the two children.
In the plea agreement, he pleaded guilty to two reduced charges of gross misdemeanor fifth-degree nonconsensual sexual contact, and six felony charges were dismissed.
The investigation of Frank began in October 2020, when a mandated reporter contacted Swift County authorities about information received from the children's mother.
According to the criminal complaint, the mother, who worked nights, said she was sleeping on the couch while Frank slept alone with her child.
In interviews, the children, born in 2008 and 2009, described what interviewers considered grooming behaviors — methods offenders use to establish relationships with parents and caregivers while testing children's boundaries through touching and keeping secrets.
He is a trucker and would ask for photos of what they were wearing to school each day when he was on the road. The older child described going on road trips with Frank in his truck.
According to court records, the younger child at first said they "don't do anything naughty."
The children and their mother moved to another house after the initial reports.
In January 2021, a caregiver contacted authorities, saying the children had more information to share. Both described inappropriate touching and sexual contact they had not disclosed before.
The younger child said the touching had started about a year earlier and had involved inappropriate touching and kissing. She said the incidents would happen "every time he came home" from trips.
The inappropriate contact allegedly continued after the mother and children had moved out of Frank's house. He was allegedly helping them decorate the new house and molested the younger girl while the older girl was in the shower.
The child told interviewers she did not tell him to stop, because she was too afraid. She said Frank told her not to tell her mother or sister.
Frank allegedly talked to the children about moving to Texas and asked one if she wanted to "take over mom's place."