Danny Heinrich, who confessed to the 1989 abduction and killing of Jacob Wetterling and the sexual assault of another boy earlier that year, will not be ordered to pay restitution to his victims, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
In a brief written ruling, U.S. District Judge John Tunheim explained that federal prosecutors informed the court Monday that no restitution was owed to the victims in Heinrich's case.
Tunheim gave the government 90 days after Heinrich's Nov. 21, 2016 sentencing to make the determination.
Heinrich, 53, is now serving a 20-year sentence at a Massachusetts federal prison after reaching a deal last year to plead guilty to a single count of receiving child pornography in exchange for confessing to the October 1989 abduction and murder of 11-year-old Wetterling and the sexual assault of Jared Scheierl, then 12, nine months earlier.
As part of the plea deal, Heinrich last summer led investigators to a farm field near Paynesville, Minn., where they unearthed Wetterling's remains.
Stephen Montemayor • 612-673-1755
Twitter: @smontemayor
