Jury finds man guilty of repeatedly assaulting girl

By BILL SCHANEN IV

Ozaukee Press staff

An Ozaukee County jury deliberated less than an hour last week before finding a 24-year-old man guilty of sexually assaulting a Grafton girl over the course of months beginning in February 2021.

Keith J. Risse of Belgium, who is guilty of repeated sexual assault of a child, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and 15 years of extended supervision. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Paul Malloy on May 18.

The case against Risse dates to March 2, 2022, when the Grafton Police Department received a report that a girl had sex with Risse.

Only the girl’s birth year is listed in the criminal complaint, so she could have been between the ages of 12 and 14 when the assaults occurred.

According to the complaint, the girl, who was interviewed by a sensitive crimes investigator from the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office, said that the first time she had sex with Risse was in Grafton on July 11 or 12, 2021, after he walked up to a picnic table where she was sitting, kissed her and had intercourse with her.

Risse then put his clothes back on and said he should go inside and check on his children, the girl said, adding that Risse told her this was a one-time incident.

The girl, however, told authorities that she and Risse had intercourse one to three times a week from July 2021 to Feb. 25, 2022. The encounters occurred at two homes in Grafton, in the Meijer parking lot in Grafton and at Risse’s home in Belgium, the girl said.

Risse was arrested in March 2022 and held in the county jail in lieu of $50,000 bail, and while in custody he had a conversation with a woman that implicated him in another sexual assault of a girl.

He was charged in August with sexual assault of a child younger than 16. That case is still pending.

According to the criminal complaint, while in jail Risse received a phone call on June 11 that was monitored by authorities.

The caller, who was Risse’s girlfriend at the time, told him that she had received a call and text messages from a girl who said, “Keith did stuff to me too,” claiming that he had sexually assaulted her, the complaint states.

Authorities then contacted the girl’s mother, who said that Risse had touched her daughter inappropriately in Grafton.

During an interview on June 24, 2022, the girl, who was apparently friends with the victim in the other case against Risse, told authorities that the three of them were walking outside on the night of Sept. 4, 2021, when Risse began kissing and touching her inappropriately, according to the criminal complaint.

When asked what she remembered about the incident, the girl, who was 13 at the time, said, “Not much. I remember him touching me and kissing me and making me feel uncomfortable, but I couldn’t stop (him) because I’m tiny and he’s big and I didn’t know what to say,” the complaint states.

A Grafton police officer had contact with the girls, presumably because they were out after curfew, the same night near where the alleged victim in the September 2021 assault said it occurred.