Alec Cook, a suspended UW-Madison junior, will be charged Thursday in a 30-count criminal complaint following sexual assault reports from multiple women last week.
The complaint claims that Cook assaulted four women since March 2015, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. Three UW-Madison students came forward last week and reported Cook assaulted them. A fourth student said that Cook had touched her inappropriately. Three other women whose cases are being investigated have reported that Cook assaulted them to police.
The charges from last week’s reports will be rolled into the new complaint, according to Assistant District Attorney Colette Sampson. The charges will include 11 felony sexual assault counts, two counts of false imprisonment, one strangulation count and more than 15 misdemeanor sexual assault counts.
UW-Madison Police Department released a statement Monday that said they referred Cook to receive 15 counts of fourth-degree sexual assault to the Dane County District Attorney. This followed a report they received from a woman last week who said she had been touched inappropriately by Cook at least 15 times during the 2016 spring semester. The unwanted contact occurred during a ballroom dance class, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Dean of Students Lori Berquam also sent an email to the campus community Wednesday explaining that the Division of Student Life and other campus units are helping the Madison Police Department and UWPD in the investigation.
Sampson told the WSJ that more than 20 notebooks found in Cook’s apartment listed techniques for attracting and stalking women. It described what interested him in the women and what he would do with them. Statements of “sexual desires” and mentions of the word "kill" were written in them.
Cook’s attorneys, Chris Van Wagner and Jessa Nicholson, released a statement about the “media firestorm” that came from the case.
"As a result, for the past few days, we have seen how the rapid-fire internet news cycle erodes that presumption of innocence,” the attorneys said.
Cook appeared in court Monday for a bail hearing—the bail was declined by Court Commissioner Jason Hanson. Cook is to remain in custody until Thursday, when a different court commissioner will read the criminal complaint and determine whether bail will be set.
