WIZM 2019 TOP STORIES: No. 8 –Show choir director gets prison for sexual assault

The sentencing of a show choir director for sexually assaulting teenage girls in his choirs ranks as the WIZM newsroom’s # 8 story of 2019. 

Thirty-five-year-old Dustin Bagstad was charged in December of 2017, with 19 criminal counts related to sexual contact with female minors. 

Last December, Bagstad was convicted on five of those counts through a plea agreement, and he was sentenced in April to 8 years in prison. 

At his sentencing, Bagstad apologized for his actions, saying “No student, faculty member, or community member bears any blame or fault for what has transpired. I made terrible choices, and those choices were my own.”

Bagstad will have probation and 32 years of extended supervision after his prison term is done.  

The former La Crosse Logan show choir director pleaded guilty in 2018 to five counts of sexually assaulting teenage girls.

Bagstad was arrested in 2017, after 14- and 15-year-old girls came forward to accuse him of sexually assaulting them, starting when they were high school students taking part in show choir.

The two victims spoke in court at the April sentencing about how they are often reminded of what Bagstad did to them.

One girl said Bagstad committed the “cruelest of acts,” and told him, “You broke me.”

As part of the sentence, Judge Todd Bjerke said Bagstad cannot enter into a relationship, have contact with anyone under 18, or access the internet unless he gets approval for any of those things from a probation agent.