Sterling Rachwal has been through the court system in Wisconsin several times over past 35 years on allegations that he molests horses.
In a recent case, a Brown County horse owner reported that her horse had been molested and was found bleeding from the anus last February.
Brown County investigators suspected Rachwal and built a case against him by checking his alibis against available video camera evidence to show that he wasn’t where he claimed to be at the times.
The investigators subsequently got legal permission to set up a GPS tracking device on Rachwal’s Ford Explorer using which they tracked him to horse barns at and around the Manitowoc-Brown county border. According to court records, the investigators then installed trail cameras in barns there, and they captured video of Rachwal molesting horses .
Rachwal’s defense lawyer recently withdrew an insanity plea, resulting in Rachwal now facing a plea and sentencing hearing. The charges against him are one misdemeanor count of mistreatment of an animal, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He also faces other similar charges filed in Manitowoc County .
According to experts, he faces at best jail time of months, not years. There are also doubts whether medical science or counselling can help .
Little Understanding Of Issue
Melissa Tedrowe, Wisconsin state director of state affairs for The Humane Society of the United States noted that his “recidivism” highlights the “weaknesses and loopholes in Wisconsin’s current bestiality law.”
Currently bestiality isn’t considered a crime in all 50 states, as per Leighann Lassiter, former director of the organization’s animal cruelty policy. And many of the states that prohibit the crime it is charged as a misdemeanor, not a felony, she added.
Animal mistreatment causing injury or death can be charged as a felony charges under a different legal statute, but that contains a loophole that sex abuse not necessarily results in provable injury.
Under Wisconsin law in cases where an animal is sexually molested using something other than a human sex organ, it is not considered a sex crime but as an abuse crime if the animal is either killed or hurt, according to Lassiter.
Rep. Andre Jacque, has introduced a bill to try to close up that loophole but is unable to find active support.
Issue Considered Revolting
Lassiter ascribes the lack of support to “the ick factor.” Even though many would like something done to stop animal molestation, even talking about it is revolting. This has even affected medical understanding of the issue, according to Dr. Brian Holoyda, a forensic psychiatrist and assistant professor of psychiatry at St. Louis University School of Medicine.
Although Holoyda has authored important papers on the topic of bestiality, he admits that medical science still knows little about it and there is little interest in investigating it further.
According to animal rights activists and groups, sexual deviants who fantasize or actually indulge in performing sex with animals are dangerous to humans.
The Humane Society of the United States has stated in its literature that animal sexual abuse “is the number one indicator of a person who will sexually abuse a child” . It also states the FBI tracks bestiality in the same category as it tracks rape and murder because of the tie-in, according to the Humane Society.
Lassiter referred to one study showing that nearly 40% of people who sexually abused children admitted to abusing animals as well as to another study that claims 100% of sexual murderers admitted to sexual molestation.
However Holoyda highlighted that there is “limited scientific data” . He has indicated that a 30-year-old study may support Lassiter’s view, which found that among individuals who presented to the clinic with deviant sexual interests like pedophilia, bestiality, or exhibitionism individuals with bestiality inclinations had “the greatest number of co-morbid interests”.
But he warned that it was not advisable to draw conclusions from such a dated study with no recent data available on the subject.
Holoyda noted that medically there are some general treatments for paraphilic disorders, like medicines to reduce libido, which could help treating bestiality. But most often, people may not seek treatment, and also the legal system fails to take the problem seriously and so is not forcing such treatment, Holoyda added.
According to Jacque said any changes to Wisconsin’s laws on the topic may not happen in the current legislative session, but expressed hope that there could be some progress in 2019.
