A former Robbinsdale School District teacher has agreed to plead guilty to a reduced charge after being accused of sexually assaulting two boys he was related to more than 100 times for several years.
The plea agreement filed Monday in Hennepin County District Court between Matthew A. Bertsch, 29, of Richfield, and prosecutors calls for him to admit to a gross misdemeanor of interference of privacy and to have dismissed felony counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct and producing pornography with a minor.
Nicholas Kimball, spokesman for the County Attorney's Office, said Wednesday that prosecutors agreed to dismiss the felony counts because "prior to trial, issues arose that significantly impacted the state's ability to prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on the top counts. Therefore, the state was forced to accept an agreement on the remaining count that the state still had sufficient admissible evidence on ... to secure a conviction."
The agreement includes Bertsch to be sentenced to no more than 90 days in the county workhouse, two years of probation and his registration with the state as a predatory offender. Sentencing before Judge Kerry Meyer is scheduled for Aug. 15.
Bertsch was arrested Aug. 30 at the FAIR School in Crystal, where he was assigned to teach during the 2022-23 academic year, and was fired within weeks.
According to the charges:
On Aug. 3, a man went to police headquarters in Bloomington with his two sons, both young adults, and reported that Bertsch had abused the boys as children for many years. They said the abuse started when one was 10 and the other 11, and lasted well into their teens. It happened most often in the basement of the father's Bloomington home, but also elsewhere, he said.
One of the young men "estimated there were over 100 instances of abuse," the charges read. "These instances occurred at multiple family homes. They would occur when there were family gatherings or when [Bertsch] was left in charge of supervising [the two boys]."
