Ex-State Trooper Pleads Guilty To Lesser Charge In Child Sexual Abuse Case

A former Vermont State Police trooper pleaded guilty Wednesday to a lesser charge after being accused of sexually assaulting an ex-girlfriend’s daughter over several years, the Brattleboro Reformer reported.

In a plea deal, Todd Chisholm, 59, agreed to a sentence to 30 days in prison and six years of probation for lewd and lascivious behavior. In December 2020, he had initially been charged also with repeated sexual assault of a child under the age of 16 and two counts of sexual assault.

The victim, who is now 31 and identified in the affidavit as K.B., came forward in 2019, telling detectives that she’d met Chisholm while he was having an extramarital affair with her mother. K.B. told investigators that the affair lasted from 1998 to 1999.

According to the affidavit, Chisholm began grooming her by making comments that K.B. said made her feel uncomfortable, telling her she was “beautiful and he couldn’t wait until she got older.”

K.B. told detectives that Chisholm then started making “aggressive” sexual advances toward her in 2002, when she was about 9, by kissing her.

According to the affidavit, Chisholm told K.B. that she couldn’t tell anyone and that “it had to be their secret,” then proceeded to make more sexual advances over time.

K.B. alleged that in 2003, Chisholm sexually assaulted her while his own daughter was asleep in the same room, according to court documents.

After that incident, K.B. alleged, the assaults continued in secret as Chisholm continued his relationship with his wife. When he came around, K.B. said, he would “treat her as his lover.”

Chisholm told K.B. he loved her and that they would be together when she was older, according to the document. It wasn’t until she was about 20 that she realized Chisholm’s behavior was wrong, and she reported it to the police.

Detectives who interviewed Chisholm’s wife at the time said she confronted him about the sexual assault in 2018 and demanded he pack his belongings and leave their home, according to the document. She told detectives she also caught Chisholm “under the covers” spooning with his own daughter, who was 12 at the time.

When confronted, Chisholm reportedly acknowledged that he was “a piece of shit, he should not be on this side of the ground, and that he should be dead,” according to court documents.

After conducting several more interviews with the victim’s mother and a pastor he reportedly confessed to, officers issued a warrant for Chisholm’s arrest.

According to the Brattleboro Reformer newspaper, Chisholm, who was a state trooper for 13 years, until 2001, accepted a plea deal Wednesday in which he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of lewd and lascivious behavior with a child.

As part of the plea deal, he was offered a sentence of four to five years in jail, which would be suspended except for 30 days, and six years of probation, according to the newspaper.

Windham County courts confirmed Chisholm’s sentencing hearing will be on July 3. An attorney representing Chisholm, who now lives in North Brookfield, Massachusetts, did not immediately return HuffPost’s request for a comment.