30-Year-Old Faces 30 Sexual Assault Charges

A 30-year-old man is facing 30 sexual assault charges involving 2 victims between 13 and 18-years-old that allegedly took place in a Brainerd residence.

Andrew Mark Donnelly will have his first court appearance in Crow Wing County on Oct. 16.

Investigator Brad Thesing was advised on Feb.17 from the Crow Wing County Sheriff’s Office Dispatch about a sexual assault at the residence in Brainerd.

On February 20, Thesing arranged interviews with the two minor children at the Family Advocacy Center in Bemidji.

According to the complaint, during the investigator’s interviews, Child 2 explained the identified residence is not the main address but the victim went into the garage to get an ATV to go riding. The complaints states that they defendant was in the garage, pulled out a pornographic magazine and showed it to the child. The defendant then exposed himself and sexually assaulted the child.

Child 1 resides with the defendant and the complaint states the sexual assault contact began around June 2016 and continued regularly over the next 9 months. The child states the defendant threatened to “knock her out” and had physically assaulted the victim by punching them in the arm or leg and calling it “dead arm/leg”.

According to the complaint, investigator Thesing obtained a search warrant for the defendant’s residence and executed the search on Feb.22. During that time Donnelly arrived to speak with Investigator Thesing at the Family Advocacy Center.

Thesing advised the defendant he was not under arrest and was free to go, but Donnelly stated he understood and agreed to the interview.

The defendant stated there was an incident in 2016 when Child 1 walked into the garage while he was looking at porn and upon mentioning the sexual act the victim did not initially “agree” but “eventually did.”

According to the complaint, Donnelly claimed it had been over 2 months since he did anything with Child 1 but justified his actions by claiming he never forced the victim to do anything.

The defendant denied hitting Child 1 but did admit that he yelled at the victim a lot.

Donnelly denied sexual contact with Child 2 but acknowledged one incident where he slapped Child 2 on the mouth after they swore at him, leaving a “fat lip” afterwards.

Investigator Thesing asked for written consent to search Donnelly’s cell phone, to which he agreed. The data recovered indicated that on Feb. 17 the defendant sent a message to a 218 area code number where he stated he “really (explicit) up” and mentioned concerns about going to prison.

Donnelly faces 17 first degree criminal sexual conduct charges, including 5 charges for a victim ages 13-15 and twelve charges for a victim under 16. The charges include penetration, significant relationship,force and multiple acts over time. Donnelly also faces 10 second degree criminal sexual conduct charges for a victim under 16-years-old and 3 third degree criminal sex conduct charges.