A former Marmion Academy teacher who was charged with sexually assaulting a student has pleaded guilty to aggravated battery.
Joseph J. Charron, 68, now of Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, was sentenced to 30 months of probation and 180 days imprisonment, according to a news release from the Kane County state’s attorney’s office. He received credit for 695 days of home confinement.
Kane County Judge Julia Yetter accepted the plea agreement on March 28.
Charron ‒ also known as Brother Andre ‒ was a monk at Marmion Abbey in Aurora and a teacher at Marmion Academy. According to the plea agreement, he made “contacts of an insulting and provoking nature with the victim,” who was 15 to 17 years old at the time, according to the news release.
Charron will have to undergo a sex offender evaluation and is prohibited from unsupervised contact with minors under 18.
Charron was originally charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault with force or threat of force and aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor with force or threat of force. When he was charged in April 2022, Aurora police said the abuse and assaults happened between Dec. 24, 2008, and July 12, 2015. They began when he was a student and continued after he graduated.
The victim made the allegations in 2021. Marmion Academy then put Charron on administrative leave and barred him from the school and from performing ministerial functions. At the time, Charron had been a member of the Order of St. Benedict for 41 years.
Marmion Academy is a Roman Catholic high school for boys.