New Child Sex Assault Charges for Gateway Student, Faces Over 1,000 Years in Prison

After of sexual assault of a child, exploitation of a child/filming and child pornography, additional victims have been identified.

Richter was charged Thursday in Racine County Circuit Court with 23 new felony counts including seven counts of first degree sexual assault of a child under the age of 12; eight counts of sexual exploitation of a child/filming, and eight counts of child pornography. If convicted of these new charges, he faces 625 years in prison on top of the 560 years he faces from the 26 original charges. The combined total possible prison time from the two cases is 1,185. The charges also carry the possibility of hundreds of years extended supervision. 

The Gateway Technical College student allegedly met his victims after he offered to his classmates to babysit the children in his Jacato Drive apartment.

According to the criminal complaint, four children seen on DVDs taken from Richter's apartment have been identified as a five-year-old girl, a seven-year-old girl, an eight-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy.

Investigators reported the DVDs show Richter having sexual contact with all the children. The defendant is also seen having sexual intercourse with the female victims and oral sex with the male victim.

During Richter's court appearance on the new charges Thursday, Racine County District Attorney Rich Chiapete said the evidence against Richter are some of the most disturbing images his office has seen.

"These are as shocking and disturbing as any we will ever see," he is quoted as saying in a story from our media partners at Fox 6 News.

Richter will appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Nov. 21 for all 49 charges against him. He remains in jail on a $1,000,000 cash bond.

The Racine Police Department continues to investigate this case and believes there are additional victims in the community and perhaps in other areas and states.

“We are concerned there are multiple victims, multiple areas, potentially multiple cities. Most every investigator that’s working on this case has children and as such, we’re doing what we would want done if our children were victimized, that’s the way we look at this case,” Racine Police Chief Art Howell said during a press conference Thursday.

If convicted, a judge would determine Richter's sentence, including how much time he would spend in prison and whether he would ever be released into the community on extended supervision. The judge could stack the sentences on top of each other, giving him a sentence hundreds of years long, ensuring he spends the rest of his life in prison, or could choose to have the sentences run at the same time, allowing him the possibility of release at some point in the future.

If anyone has information, they are urged to call investigators at (262) 635-7756 or to leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at (262) 636-9330 or text RACS plus the message to CRIMES (274637) and refer to Tipsoft I.D. #TIP417 with the text message.