A Freeborn County jury found former Albert Lea High School band instructor Russell Konrad guilty of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct with a student Thursday.

Friday, November 30, 2001

A Freeborn County jury found former Albert Lea High School band instructor Russell Konrad guilty of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct with a student Thursday.

Konrad, 42, will receive a sentence by Judge James Broberg after the State Department of Corrections’ pre-sentencing investigation.

&uot;From my perspective, they are very relieved,&uot; County Attorney Craig Nelson said of the victim and her family.

Defense attorney Samuel A. McCloud said, &uot;The verdict was disappointing. What else can I say?&uot;

Nelson forecasts the sentence would likely be probationary because of Konrad’s clean criminal record.

A major portion of the three-day court battle centered around the validity of so-called Spriegl evidence: evidence of defendant’s other bad acts which are not part of the filed charge.

The criminal charge against Konrad was for a particular incident that took place on April 29, 2000, when Konrad had inappropriate physical contact with his junior-year band student.

But the prosecutor raised the following issues as relevant evidence:

– Five other instances of physical contact with the victim.

– A telephone conversation with the victim.

– A reprimand by the ALHS principal for accessing a pornographic Web site from a school computer.

– An alleged case of sexual misconduct on another high school band student, which took place in 1983 or ’84.

In the trial, McCloud tried to convince the jury that that evidence had nothing to do with the charge and described them as a poison to mislead the jury.

But Nelson emphasized that the evidence would prove Konrad’s motive, propensity, absence of mistake, or common scheme of plan.

Another focal point was the credibility of the victim’s allegation.

McCloud attempted to destabilize the credibility by questioning the victim’s silence on the repeated sexual misconduct by Konrad.

Nelson refuted that argument by stressing Konrad’s authority as a grading instructor. The victim testified that she was hesitant to report the incidents, fearing that nobody would believe her.&uot;The larger the fact is the difficulty to disclose,&uot; Nelson said.

Albert Lea High School principal Al Root testified in the trial as a prosecution witness. &uot;We have worked with (the victim) and her family as much as possible to make her feel comfortable and safe in the school after she had brought the case forward.&uot;

Root said the school has gotten over the disturbing event and is going forward. &uot;Since Mr. Konrad resigned, we hired a new band director, which really made our program grow and let us go in the right direction.&uot;