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Content warning: This article describes sexual assault. Please take care while reading.
According to CBS News, a Minnesota mom has been sentenced to five years probation for sexually assaulting two teenage boys at a hotel where she was on a “staycation” with her husband and their children in January last year.
Allison Schardin, now 39, reportedly met the two 15-year-old boys at the hotel in Roseville, MN, where the boys were staying after traveling from Colorado for a hockey tournament. The legal complaint viewed by Law & Crime says Schardin joined three boys in the hotel hot tub, told them she was having marital problems, and admitted she had slept with a teenage hockey player just weeks before.
While speaking to the boys, Schardin’s husband shouted, “If you don’t come upstairs, our relationship is over,” the complaint states. According to CBS News, she told the teenagers her husband abused her and her two children.
Schardin and the boys exchanged socials
Schardin exchanged SnapChat information with one of the victims, and later joined all three boys in one of the victim’s rooms. She asked them their ages and then initiated a sexual conversation, leading to sexual contact with the two victims. The third boy was not involved. “She told them that she was 38 and they were young enough to be her kids,” Schardin’s complaint states.
Schardin later said she asked if the boys had condoms, but told the police she wouldn’t have followed through it. “I think I just, things were starting to progress and, um, I think I thought about it for a moment and then I just was like, yeah, no,” she said One boy described “feeling stuck in the moment and did not know how to say no.”
Schardin contacted the boys the next day, showed up at their game, and even messaged one of the boys after he returned to Colorado, telling him, “I will do or say anything you want just don’t tell the police or report what happened.” At least one boy blocked her messages.
Schardin was arrested weeks later and admitted what she’d done, but at first, she pleaded not guilty. In May, she agreed to plead guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct. In exchange, a fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct charge was dropped. Schardin must also register as a sex offender. She will also perform 200 hours of community service and undergo mental health treatment.
According to the Minnesota Star Tribune, the two young victims were at first suspended from their hockey team because of what happened. They were reinstated, but not long afterward, the team decided to cancel the rest of the season. Referring to the two young victims, prosecutors added, “They have lost friends, and they have had to endure whispers and harmful comments from others as if they were the perpetrators.”
“The defendant’s behavior was not a momentary lapse in judgment,” the prosecution added after Schardin’s sentencing was announced. “It was clearly planned. Why else would an adult exchange contact information with juveniles that she just met in a hotel and then later go to their room?”
If you know someone suffering from sexual violence, contact RAINN or the National Sexual Abuse Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.