Prison time looms over teen who assaulted girl, violated injunction

Nicholas Landowski
Judges in two counties left the specter of years in prison looming over a former Saukville teenager who sexually assaulted one Port Washington High School student in Washington County and harassed another in Ozaukee County earlier this year despite a court order barring him from having contact with her.
Former Port High student Nicholas G. Landowski, 19, who notified the court last month that he moved to Germantown, pleaded guilty Wednesday, Sept. 12, to one felony count of third-degree sexual assault for having sex with a drunken 15-year-old girl at a Jan. 14 Town of Trenton party. He was 18 at the time.
Then on Tuesday, Sept. 18, Landowski pleaded guilty in Ozaukee County to charges of felony bail jumping and violating a harassment injunction for repeatedly contacting his ex-girlfriend, who according to court records is friends with the victim of the sexual assault.
In Washington County, Judge James Muehlbauer sentenced Landowski to three years in prison followed by five years of extended supervision but stayed the sentence and placed him on probation for five years, which means Landowski won’t have to serve the prison time unless he violates the conditions of his probation.
But Landowski didn’t escape time behind bars. As a condition of his probation, Muehlbauer ordered him to serve one year in the county jail.
By virtue of his conviction, Landowski must register as a sex offender.
In Ozaukee County, Judge Paul Malloy followed suit by sentencing Landowski on Tuesday, Sept. 18, to an additional two years in prison followed by two years of extended supervision but stayed the sentence and placed him on probation for three years for the bail jumping conviction.
Malloy also sentenced him to time in the county jail for violating the harassment injunction, but stayed that sentence as well and placed Landowski on probation through the duration of the injunction, which expires in April 2022.
“I don’t think at age 19 you would fare very well in there (prison),” Malloy told Landowski while warning him to abide by the conditions of his probation. “I don’t know that before you took anything very seriously. You better take this seriously.”
Landowski was free on bail in connection with a disorderly conduct charge for vandalizing his ex-girlfriend’s house when he was accused of sexually assaulting the 15-year-old girl at a party on Jan. 14.
The girl, who was interviewed by an officer at a hospital, said she was drunk but remembers being in a bedroom with Landowski, whose pants were down, standing over her.
A boy at the party told authorities that after using a pin to pop the lock of the bedroom door, he saw Landowski assaulting the girl.
Landowski, who ultimately admitted to the assault, was initially charged with second-degree sexual assault, but that charge was amended to third-degree sexual assault as part of a plea agreement.
The injunction Landowski violated stemmed from an Oct. 28, 2017, incident in which he and two juveniles painted penis symbols on the house of his ex-girlfriend, who was 15 at the time.
In December 2017, Landowski was charged with disorderly conduct in connection with the incident. Malloy released from him from custody in lieu of a $250 signature bond and ordered him not to have contact with his ex-girlfriend, except incidental contact at Port High, where they were both students at the time.
But according to a petition for the injunction filed by his ex-girlfriend’s mother on her daughter’s behalf, Landowski sought the girl out at school for months after Malloy ordered him not to have contact with her.
In April, Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Sandy Williams granted the injunction barring Landowski from having contact with the girl for four years, but that didn’t stop him from harassing her.
In June, Landowski was charged with violating the injunction. According to the criminal complaint, he contacted his ex-girlfriend about 15 times on social media. He also contacted her friends to ask about her, then threatened them.
“This past year has been really hard for me,” Landowski’s ex-girlfriend told Malloy during Tuesday’s hearing, adding that she had to deal with “constant stress” caused by Landowski.
During the course of his legal tribulations, Landowski spent about three months in jail, and that, his father Barry Landowski said, changed him.
“A year ago, Nicholas was a senior in high school. He was very conceited. He thought he was all it,” Mr. Landowski told Malloy. “It was all one bad decision after another.”
Now Landowski works for his father, attends church and has become a responsible young man, his father said.
“He’s not the same person he was a year ago,” Mr. Landowski said.
Malloy, who presided over a number of Landowski’s criminal cases, lamented the fact that at age 19, Landowski is a felon.
“This has been an abject failure from the court’s viewpoint,” he said. “You never want to see an 18 or 19-year-old saddled with felonies.”
If Landowski is going to avoid prison, he will have to abide by the conditions of his probation, which include not having contact with his ex-girlfriend.
“She’s not part of your life anymore. She doesn’t want to be part of your life,” Malloy told him.
The judge also ordered Landowski not to use computers or cell phones. The phone prohibition, Landowski’s lawyer Barbara Privat said, will interfere with his ability to do his job, but Malloy didn’t relent.
“Then his father will have to make his calls for him,” the judge said.
Category:
Feedback:
Click Here to Send a Letter to the EditorOzaukee Press
Wisconsin’s largest paid circulation community weekly newspaper. Serving Port Washington, Saukville, Grafton, Fredonia, Belgium, as well as Ozaukee County government. Locally owned and printed in Port Washington, Wisconsin.
125 E. Main St.
Port Washington, WI 53074
(262) 284-3494