Crime & Safety

UPDATED: $225K Bail Set For Skout Sexual Assault Suspect

Waukesha man, 21, faces 16 charges in Waukesha County for alleged child pornography and drug crimes.

This story was updated at 1:51 p.m. Monday with additional information about the bail and criminal charges.

A 21-year-old Waukesha man whose sexual assault charge prompted a partial shutdown of a social networking site faces an additional 16 felonies in Waukesha County.

The one-time volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sister, a child mentorship program, is facing serious allegations of delivering drugs, sexual assault and child pornography in Waukesha and Milwaukee counties. His bail was set Monday afternoon at $225,000 on the new charges. As a condition of bail, he is not to have any contact with males under age 18 and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

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Daniel R. Schmidt is accused of .  The case has drawn national media attention and prompted Skout’s CEO to shut down a mobile app to the website and

Schmidt is charged with:

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  • One count of manufacturing/delivering marijuana
  • Two counts of maintaining a drug trafficking place
  • 13 counts of child pornography

Schmidt could face spending the rest of his life in prison if convicted on all the charges listed in the criminal complaints. He returns to court at 10 a.m. Aug. 2 for a preliminary hearing on the drug and child pornography charges.

The Waukesha Police Department discovered potential child pornography and sexual text messages between Schmidt and a minor while they were investigating Schmidt for drugs following a March police chase. Police then executed a search warrant on Schmidt’s home where they found child pornography, according to the criminal complaint.

The complaint alleges Schmidt admitted to sharing about 360 images and four videos with other individuals. Investigators located more than 600 pornographic images on his computer, with the majority of the files being child pornography.

One of the children in the images has been identified as a known child victim by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the complaint states.

The drug charges allege Schmidt sold marijuana to a confidential informant working with the Waukesha Police Department on Oct. 20 and Nov. 17

According to the criminal complaint on the sexual assault charge in Milwaukee County:

Schmidt met the victim on Skout, where he posed as a 16-year-old in order to gain access to the younger age group where he met the 13-year-old. The teen sent pictures of his naked genitals to Schmidt and the two eventually arranged to meet.

Schmidt picked the victim up in Muskego on June 2 then drove to Hales Corners Park where they went to a secluded area and performed sexual acts. The two were spotted by a woman walking her dog, who called police.

Police officers confronted the two about the incident as they were leaving the secluded area of the park.

Schmidt appeared in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on Friday and pleaded not guilty to the charge filed there.

There have been at least two other cases nationally in which teenagers were assaulted by adults who found the youths in Skout, according to FOX News.

In Ohio, 15-year-old was allegedly raped by a 37-year-old man who posed as a teenager on Skout and promised to give her a ride to meet her boyfriend in Kentucky.

And in police in Escondido, CA, found a missing 12-year-old after checking her cell phone records and finding that she met someone through Skout. The girl was later found at the home of 24-year-old man, whom police say had sex with the underage girl.


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