Prison for Minnesota woman for sexual misconduct with 11-year-old student in western Wisconsin

A Twin Cities woman has received a 12-year prison sentence for sexual contact with a boy who was her student in a western Wisconsin elementary school.

Madison Lynn Bergmann, 26, of Lake Elmo was sentenced on Dec. 19 after pleading guilty in St. Croix County Circuit Court to two counts of sexual misconduct by a school staff member and one count of child sexual enticement in connection with her contact with an 11-year-old fifth-grader at River Crest Elementary School in Hudson.

Bergmann’s sentence calls for her to serve half of her term in prison and the balance on extended supervision.

During her time under supervision, she is barred from having contact with anyone under 18 years old without court approval. She also must register with the state as a sex offender and stay off the internet and social media.

The school district placed Bergmann on administrative leave in May 2024, when charges were filed.

Bergmann’s online resume said she began teaching at River Crest in August 2022 and worked for Sylvan Learning in Hudson for nearly three years before that. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls in 2022.

According to the charges, which covered from September 2023 to late April 2024:

Bergmann was removed from class on the day the detective was at the school and interviewed in another room by police. She said she went on a snowboarding outing with the boy and his family the previous winter, and the two of them exchanged phone numbers.

The detective went back to Bergmann’s class and collected her belongings, including a backpack that held a folder with the boy’s name on it. Inside were love notes from the boy. Bergmann was then arrested and escorted to jail.

The boy told police he and Bergmann had been communicating almost daily and slyly caressing each other. One day, he continued, Bergmann told him to stay after class. She gave him what he said was his first kiss. He added they kissed several times in the classroom since March.