Trial set for De Pere parents accused of abusing their three adopted children

by Amanda Becker

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WLUK) -- A trial has been set for the family members accused of abusing their three adopted children.

Donald and Sharon Windey and their biological son, Steven Windey, are accused of physical, mental and sexual abuse spanning preschool to high school ages of the three children.

The three were arrested last February. Donald and Sharon Windey are each charged with eight felony counts: two counts of party to a crime of child abuse, one count of causing great harm to a child, one count of strangulation, and four counts of causing mental harm to a child.

Brown County assistant district attorney Wendy Lemkuil said the complaint shows how much abuse went on, and for how long.

“It was daily, it was regularly, it was continually, it was for years,” said Lemkuil. “The abuse with one of the girls started the first time she was in a preschool or kindergarten setting. These kids are in high school. If that doesn’t show you just on its face the duration and the longevity of this abuse.”

In the criminal complaint, the three children allege that the Windeys refused to give them medicine when they felt sick and locked up the food in the house.

They also accuse the parents of physical abuse, including multiple detailed accounts of grabbing them by the throat until they couldn’t breathe and beating them with belts.

One child recalls Sharon Windey, a retired state trooper, placed her child “in a chokehold and lifted her off the ground.”

According the complaint, one child said the parents were delusional and religious freaks. The child told investigators that Donald Windey “hears his guardian angel telling him to do the things he’s doing.”

Another child claimed that she was forced to kiss Donald Windey on the lips and that the kissing went on for five minutes.

The children said police were called to the house after an altercation but police told them their house was “not the typical house for abuse” and it didn’t look like anything happened because the kids were well fed and went to a good school.

Sgt. Schrank with the City of De Pere says in the complaint he determined two of the children gave separate and consistent information.

In court Monday, as the date was set, the lawyers of Sharon and Donald Windey argued that the criminal complaint smeared the couple's reputations.

Donald Windey’s attorney spoke to FOX 11 Tuesday, calling the criminal complaint “fluff.”

“I think that what the state's doing is criminalizing religious conduct,” said Donald Windey’s attorney, George Pappas. “What the state's done here, essentially, is almost smeared the reputations of the Windeys by putting all of this superfluous language in here and we need to know the essential facts are for the offenses charged."

The Windeys were both released on bond last May. As a condition of that bond, they're not allowed to have contact with each other or any of the children.

Pappas wants three of the criminal counts dropped before the trial, claiming that they are outside of the three-and-a-half-year statute of limitations.

Donald and Sharon Windeys' trial is set to begin Sept. 30. Steven Windey is due back in court June 28 for a status hearing.