Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
Hurley — A Hurley man pleaded no contest to several charges Tuesday in Iron County court.
Andrew Zaleski, 39, pleaded no contest to charges of false imprisonment, felony bail jumping and stalking. He also pleaded to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. A no contest plea is similar to a guilty plea but isn’t considered an admission of guilt.
The bail jumping and false imprisonment charges are the two most serious he pleaded to, as both are classified as Class H felonies in the state of Wisconsin and carry a potential maximum sentence of up to 6 years in prison.
The false imprisonment and stalking charges carry domestic-abuse modifiers, which require a domestic abuse assessment according to court documents.
The plea agreement resolves all six criminal cases against Zaleski, with a total of 37 charges.
The oldest case stems from 2018, which included the false imprisonment charge Zaleski pleaded to.
The criminal complaint in that case alleges that in January 2018, a woman reported she went to a Hurley hotel room believing she was meeting someone she had been texting, but instead found Zaleski hiding on the bed under the covers.
The woman had a personal protection order against Zaleski in Gogebic County at the time.
Zaleski kept her in the room for roughly 30 minutes, according to the complaint, before she was able to get out of the room when he “let his guard down.”
In the case with the stalking charge he pleaded to, Zaleski is accused of repeatedly contacting the same woman in December 2018 and January 2019.
A search of Zaleski’s phone by the Hurley Police Department allegedly showed evidence of texts and explicit pictures being sent through multiple applications between Dec. 22 and Jan. 7, according to the criminal complaint in that case.
While the daily number of alleged messages varied by day, the information in the complaint alleges the number was as high as 168 texts at one point.
The disorderly conduct misdemeanor he pleaded to was downgraded from child abuse-intentionally causing harm to a child under the terms of the plea agreement.
Other than the four charges Zaleski pleaded no contest to, the remaining charges he faced will be dismissed under the terms of the plea agreement.
This includes an additional charge of stalking, 15 counts of violating an out-of-state protection order and 17 counts of felony bail jumping.
A pre-sentence investigation has been ordered and Zaleski is expected to be sentenced in October.
