A 25-year-old former Hudson, Wisconsin elementary school teacher has pleaded guilty to child enticement and second-degree sexual assault of a child under 16, admitting she sexually assaulted a 15-year-old boy while working as his family's nanny in Washington County. Abigail Michelle Faust also pleaded guilty earlier in September to third-degree criminal sexual conduct in a related Stillwater, Minnesota case, closing out a sprawling two-state prosecution that began with a colleague's text messages to a fifth grader.
As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to dismiss nearly a dozen other charges, including a separate case accusing Faust of kissing a fifth-grade boy in her classroom at the end of a school day, according to the Pioneer Press. Faust resigned from her teaching job at River Crest Elementary School in May 2024. The school, located on County Road F, is part of the Hudson School District and serves roughly 366 pre-K through fifth-grade students, according to Ballotpedia.
In a statement, Faust said she violated trust and has been undergoing therapy to understand her choices, adding, according to the Pioneer Press, that “what I did was not a mistake or a lapse of judgment.” St. Croix County prosecutors charged her with 13 felonies in September 2025, days after Washington County prosecutors filed their own charges. As part of the deal, prosecutors agreed not to argue for more than 15 years in prison at her sentencing in the teen assault case.
A Case Built on a Colleague's Texts
Faust's fifth-grade case was discovered only after investigators reviewed text messages tied to a 2024 criminal case involving Madison Lynn Bergmann, a former colleague and friend at River Crest Elementary. Bergmann, a 27-year-old Lake Elmo resident, sent more than 35,000 texts to an 11-year-old boy during much of the 2023–2024 school year and kissed him on the mouth several times in her classroom, per KARE 11. That review of Bergmann's phone records uncovered exchanges in which the two teachers discussed their interactions with students, ultimately implicating Faust.
Both women resigned from their fifth-grade teaching posts at River Crest in May 2024 once allegations against Bergmann surfaced. Bergmann pleaded guilty to three felonies, and St. Croix County Circuit Judge Scott Nordstrand sentenced her to six years in prison followed by six years of supervision. Nordstrand said Bergmann's crimes were “deliberate and purposeful and devastating to the victim,” the station's report noted.
Allegations Involving the Fifth-Grader
The dismissed Wisconsin case centered on a boy who gave conflicting accounts of an incident with Faust in her classroom. According to the criminal complaint, the boy said the kiss was on the lips and occurred after Faust asked him to stay after class, though he separately told police the kiss was on the cheek and that it made him uncomfortable and scared. He later told a therapist in August 2024 that Faust had pushed him against a wall and kissed him, and he said Faust had previously left her phone number on his desk. The boy said he felt nervous for the rest of the school year afterward.
The Nanny Assault in Washington County
Faust had been the teen's nanny since 2021 and began communicating with him through phone calls and FaceTime before the relationship escalated. Court documents state she sent provocative Snapchat messages to the teen in December 2024, kissed him in his bedroom that same month while he was home alone, and later sent him pictures of herself wearing lingerie. The two also exchanged nude pictures and, according to the complaint, simulated intercourse without actual penetration; Faust allegedly told the teen they could have sex if he performed well in his sport.
Faust sexually assaulted the teen in early January 2025 at her home in Hudson and assaulted him twice more that month after spending the night at his home, according to the complaint. She reportedly told the teen that they both knew their conduct was bad and would get in trouble if he told anyone. While the teen's family traveled to Florida, with Faust staying behind to care for their pets, she began a sexual relationship with one of the teen's friends. The complaint states the assaults on the teen continued approximately twice a week over the following months.
Sentencing Dates and Statutory Exposure
St. Croix County Circuit Court Judge R. Michael Waterman has set Faust's sentencing for December 15 and denied a prosecution motion to remand her to custody beforehand; she has posted a $200,000 bond. She is separately scheduled to be sentenced in the Stillwater case on December 8. The plea deal in Minnesota calls for a stayed three-year prison sentence, one year in jail to run concurrent with her Wisconsin sentence, and 10 years of probation.
Second-degree sexual assault of a child under 16 is a Class C felony carrying a statutory maximum of up to 40 years in prison, according to Martinez & Ruby, LLP. Minnesota's third-degree criminal sexual conduct statute, meanwhile, carries a maximum of up to 15 years in prison and fines of up to $30,000, per the Balmer Law Office. A conviction for second-degree sexual assault of a child in Wisconsin also triggers mandatory sex offender registration.
Faust was previously a student-athlete on the cross-country team at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, where she was named to the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Scholastic Honor Roll for the 2019–2020 academic year, according to UW-River Falls Athletics. It remains unclear what specific prison term St. Croix County prosecutors will recommend when Faust returns to court in December, though their plea agreement caps their request at 15 years.
