Menominee prosecutor defends Helfert plea deal as former assistant files to unseat him

MENOMINEE, Mich. (WJMN) — Menominee County Prosecutor Jeffrey Rogg is defending the latest plea deal for twice-convicted sex offender and former school resource officer Brian Helfert. This, as a former assistant’s reaction to the deal is a last-minute write-in campaign to unseat him.

For much of this year, Monday was penned to be the start of the latest jury trial of Brian Helfert, who served much of his 27 years with the Menominee County Sheriff’s Department as a school resource officer before an investigation by City of Menominee police uncovered abuse allegations spanning decades.

The first successful case against Helfert sent him behind bars for only months, but another case that ended with a conviction by jury landed him close to the maximum sentence for the 2nd Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct charge that he could be given— 9 to 15 years in prison.

During the December 2023 trial, some attendees spoke of their hopes for further punishment for Helfert in this next case, where another conviction by jury had potential to send him to prison for life.

Then, on July 18 court documents show a plea hearing was held where Rogg and Helfert’s lawyer, Trent Stupak, presented a deal to Circuit Court Judge Chris Ninomiya.

The deal stipulates the prosecution will downgrade the CSC 1 charge to an “attempted” version of the crime, recommend Helfert be sentenced to 5 years concurrent with his current sentence, and not pursue prosecution for or re-file other cases from Helfert’s accusers that have already been introduced to the court.

In return, Helfert would plead no contest to the downgraded charge and waive his right to appeal his previous conviction, guaranteeing he will serve at least the minimum sentence.

On a Friday afternoon, Rogg told us the deal had been accepted by the judge and would be finalized at a sentencing hearing in October.

We asked him about the merits of the deal.

“That is a huge advantage for me in being able to provide finality to that victim in this case and the victims in all these cases,” said Rogg.

As for the occasion for the deal, the prosecutor said several factors affecting the strength of the case influenced his decision, but they all largely revolved around the burden that testifying would bear on the victims—an issue that Rogg has been confronted with before in his attempts to prosecute Helfert.

“So basically I have the main victim who doesn’t want anything to do with it, and then the three other victims who said likewise, they don’t want to have anything to do with it,” said Rogg.

He added that legally, he could compel the victims to go before the court, but he was concerned about their wellbeing. “I had one of them threatening suicide. Is that a price that should be paid? I think not, and so that was part of the reason for my decision,” Rogg said.

Rogg also specified that alleged victims of Helfert who have not yet taken action in the courts are not barred by the deal from pursuing charges.

In our conversation, Rogg defended the deal as an agreement that honored the wishes of the victims and secured the longest sentence for Helfert to date. Despite this, he said he has also been criticized for it.

“Since this news came out the other day, there’s been people on social media who have been banging the drum about how terrible it is and all this… they really don’t know what they’re talking about,” said Rogg. “It irritates me because it’s an utterly uninformed opinion. And I think it’s a selfish opinion, because they don’t care about Brian Helfert, they don’t care about these victims. They just want to use this as a cudgel for their own selfish purposes.”

Rogg further defended the deal, saying he got explicit approval from the main victim in the case, and spoke with the other victims it would affect.

Meanwhile, a victims’ rights attorney and former assistant to Rogg, Nicholas Tselepis, has announced he is now running against Rogg as a write-in candidate in the upcoming primary election, citing problems with the deal.

“I was content to let Jeffrey Rogg continue to be the prosecutor, and then the new recent plea deal was announced,” said Tselepis. “Some of those conditions of that plea deal, I found to be a complete concession to a predator.”

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In our call Monday afternoon, Local 3 described the details of the deal as told to us by Rogg.

“I think we’re all good on that until we get to the part where he agrees to not pursue any other known victims’ cases,” said Tselepis.

He told us that he had been in contact with two victims who were upset that they would lose the ability to pursue their cases under the deal. “Specifically, the only part of the deal they cared about was the part to waive their cases.”

We asked Tselepis how he would have handled the prosecution. He admitted while it’s possible he may have also reached a similar plea deal in this case, it would not include an agreement that affected other victims’ cases.

“It would never include another victim’s case. Each victim [would] have their own shot at having a trial, having a plea, having whatever they determine is dignity for themselves,” said Tselepis.

He said a larger difference between himself and Rogg is in what services he would work to provide victims of crime and how he would process some types of cases.

“I’d bring a victim’s advocate on staff immediately, and have crime victims have [access to] a trained, social work-type individual who they can talk to about the trauma they are facing. Secondly, I would prioritize bringing in an alternative or treatment court for drug and DUI offenders that would focus on the underlying problems of addiction.”

On the criticism he has received since the deal was struck, Rogg said, “this job requires courage and character, and it requires on to be called upon to make very difficult decisions, like this one. And I will always put the rights of the victims and their preferences first, and I will let the chips fall where they may.”

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