State v. Olson

1

State of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Zackery J. Olson, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 2023AP369-CR

Court of Appeals of Wisconsin, District II

May 22, 2024

This opinion will not be published. See WIS. STAT. RULE 809.23(1)(b)4.

APPEAL from a judgment of the circuit court for Waukesha County: No 2021CM1454 JENNIFER R. DOROW, Judge. Affirmed.

GUNDRUM, P.J. ^[1]

¶1 Zackery J. Olson appeals from a judgment of conviction entered after a jury trial for two counts of violating a harassment injunction, both as a repeater. He contends the circuit court erroneously exercised its discretion by sentencing him to prison instead of placing him on probation. For the following reasons, we disagree and affirm.

Background

¶2 In 2015, Carrie received a ten-year harassment restraining order against Olson, prohibiting him from contacting her, and in 2018, her sister Hannah^[2] received a similar four-year restraining order against him. In December 2020, Olson contacted each of them by text message; as a result, he was charged with two counts of violating a harassment injunction as a repeater. The "repeater" status was due to Olson's 2017 conviction of three counts of violating the 2015 restraining order Carrie had received. A jury found him guilty of both counts stemming from the December 2020 contacts.

¶3 At sentencing, Carrie relayed to the circuit court the terror Olson has caused her for years. She explained how she has to see a counselor "to help find ways to cope with trauma that Olson has caused," adding that she and her husband "have cameras all around our house that instantly alert our phones of any movements" and that she "cannot leave my house for something as simple as a walk outside with my kids without my firearm." "I have been called my girl, baby, little fucking brat, bunny, pussy, cunt, and good little fuck bunny in the numerous voicemails and texts sent by this man," Carrie continued. She relayed how less than two weeks earlier-after Olson had been found guilty at trial but before sentencing-she went to see a band in Elkhart Lake, and

[t]he moment we got back to the hotel room, I found that I had three emails from [Olson's email address] timestamped minutes after we entered the concert hall.

I have done nothing but call the cops on him for years now. And he finds it appropriate to email me while out on bail with a sentencing hearing just days away.

My gut tells me he was there watching me the whole time, and it makes me sick to my stomach. I th[a]nk God I was never on my own that night.

Carrie indicated that the Fond du Lac District Attorney's office had charged Olson with ten counts in relation to this incident. She stated that Olson "said himself you're not going to scare me away with the fucking cops anymore." She added that "[t]he restraining orders and the police warnings won't and haven't scared him away. From what I have witnessed, he will never stop. As long as he's walking around free, he will never stop trying to get to me. And I will never have the chance to live a normal life."

¶4 Carrie continued: "This has been allowed to escalate for far too long, and I don't want to become another statistic. There is nothing more terrifying to me as a woman than knowing someone with no respect for the law is out there holding on to an 18-year sexually charged obsession with you." Carrie asked the circuit court to "impose the longest stay in jail as possible for a second offender and a man as compulsive as Zackery 01s[]on. I also ask[] that he gets intensive psychological therapy while in jail that continues into whatever probation period of time he may be granted." She concluded her comments "with this quote from a voicemail Zackery Olson sent me on February 22nd, 2021:

You're not going to scare me away with the fucking cops anymore. And you're not gonna keep me at bay by satisfying me with your way of communication. It's a fucking crumb of communication. I'm done. I'm over it. It's old. It's just going to end up pissing me off more. All right? I want the real thing. I need the real thing. I want my girl. You're my girl. All right? I want my [Carrie]. So I know you're up there with your fucking husband right now. I think your phone is off. You're not his. You belong to-you don't belong to him. All right, [Carrie]? Your pussy belongs to me. Your holes belong to me. Your titties belong to me. You belong to me. Everything belongs to me. All right? And I'm your man. I'm your daddy. All right? This stick is yours. All right? So why don't you come hop on it like a good little fuck bunny that I know you want to be. Quit playing with me. Quit being afraid to admit it. So why don't you pick up your phone when I call your phone? Unblock my number and accept my call and stop being a pussy. I told you things are different. And I fucking mean it. We need to get together. We need to talk. Okay? Because you're not going to keep me at bay anymore. I'm going to go.

¶5 At trial, Carrie testified, inter alia, that on December 24, 2020, she received a text message from an unknown number with a bunny emoji and a message of "[o]nly good little bunnies get their stocking stuffed for Christmas." Carrie received a second text a few days later from the same number with only the bunny emoji. When her sister also received a text from the same number a couple of days later, the two were concerned that the messages had come from Olson. Carrie was "[v]ery" frightened by this, and they contacted the police. Police learned that the text came from a "burner" phone number traced to Olson and contacted him on December 30, 2020. On December 31, 2020, Carrie received another text from a different number she did not recognize, which text stated, "I politely told your friends to piss off yesterday." Police also connected this text to Olson.

¶6 Hannah also spoke briefly at the sentencing hearing, asking the circuit court to "do everything in your power to make sure that [Carrie] is not a statistic." At trial, Hannah had testified, inter alia, that Olson resides five houses away from her, she and Carrie went to elementary school and high school with Olson, and Hannah graduated high school with him in 2006. In her victim impact statement submitted to the court prior to sentencing, Hannah explained that in May 2017, after being charged with violating the harassment injunction Carrie had, Olson "showed up on my doorstep" and "threatened to come after [Carrie] and our family with everything he had." Subsequently he "called me 8 times" between April 13 and 22, 2018, leading to Hannah's four-year harassment injunction against him. She further stated she refuses to "walk anywhere near [Olson's] house or allow my daughters anywhere near his home for fear that he could try to get to my sister through my own family." And, while she and her husband were away from their home on vacation, they were "terrified to learn that in many of [Olson's] voicemail rants to [Carrie], he spoke about watching our home" and that Olson knew Hannah's car had not been in the driveway for a couple of days.

¶7 The State recommended twelve months confinement on each count, consecutive, pointing out, after referencing the new charges in Fond du Lac County, that Olson "hasn't accepted responsibility." The prosecutor noted a 2010 conviction for possession of narcotic drugs as well as Olson's three prior convictions for violating a restraining order. The prosecutor pointed out that when Carrie got her initial injunction against Olson in 2015,

the Judge says, "Stop calling her. Stop contacting her." And I think it's very rare that we see a ten-year injunction.... And what that ten-year injunction stated was that the [c]ourt found that he might sexually assault her, like, kill her.... [W]hat we commonly see is the four-year injunction.

And, again, that's back in 2015. And since then, we have seen this continued pattern of conduct and obsession and harassment.

The prosecutor stated, "[N]ow things ... have escalated. Because now he's not using his phone number. Now he's concealing his phone number. And he's calling or texting both [Hannah] and [Carrie]. Again, he knows he can't contact them.... And he starts contacting them again." She informed the court that Olson has contacted Carrie "over 749 times. Voicemails, messages." She mentioned that the voicemails

are sick and perverse, and sexually explicit. And again, this isn't somebody who's ever had a relationship with the defendant. Neither [Hannah] nor [Carrie]. And this escalation of now he's not just contacting them or sending emoji's, now he's leaving these perverse voicemails on her phone. And as [Carrie] describes, what are you supposed to do? He's now had judges tell him to stop contacting her. He's had commissioners. He's been repeatedly told on bail to stop contacting. And he continues to do it.

...

The most recent case, obviously, just happened a week and half ago ....

... He served nine months' jail straight time. That didn't do it. He served two years' probation. That didn't do it. I think that the only way that these victims have any sense of safety is if he's in custody.

The prosecutor indicated she was not convinced Olson had any probationary needs, stating,

[Y]ou know, he did the mental health evaluation]. I believe that was ordered on the last probation sentence.... I don't know that this is a mental health issue. This is a stop contacting them. They don't want anything to do with you. Stop....

What else can we do? The only reasonable option that the State sees is that he's locked up. And that's why I am recommending a very lengthy sentence in jail, because I don't see any other way to stop him. Nine months wasn't enough.... [A]t some point, we have to at least take him out of the community so these

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