Former Monroe County nurse Melissa Knutson was sentenced Feb. 27 to 18 months in prison after prosecutors said she repeatedly had sex with a drug court participant under her care and later made a false sexual assault allegation against him.
The case drew attention in western Wisconsin because prosecutors said it involved both a breach of medical ethics and a false crime report that sent investigators in the wrong direction. Knutson eventually pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office and obstructing an officer. At sentencing, Judge Paul Curran said the case harmed a vulnerable person in treatment and weakened trust in nurses and in the systems meant to support people trying to recover from substance abuse.
According to a criminal complaint and later statements from prosecutors, the case began on March 2, 2023, when Knutson reported to Sparta police that she had been raped between July and October 2022 by a man identified in court papers as JLS. She said he had threatened her and her family and that fear kept her from coming forward sooner. At the time, Knutson was a Monroe County mental health nurse working with the county’s drug court. The man she accused was one of the participants in that program. By March 2025, prosecutors had charged her with four counts of second degree sexual assault by an employee of a care or service facility and one count of attempted resisting or obstructing an officer with intent to mislead. Monroe County Human Resources later confirmed Knutson no longer worked for the county and had not been employed there since 2022.
The complaint said the story changed after investigators found and interviewed the man Knutson had accused. He had become homeless after finishing drug court and was difficult to locate, but investigators learned on Aug. 28, 2024, that he was being held in the Monroe County Jail. There, he told a lieutenant that the relationship had been consensual and gave officers messages that, according to the complaint, showed the two had been in contact for months. In one exchange summarized in the complaint, Knutson said her life was falling apart, that she and her husband planned to divorce, and that she had liked him since their first meeting. The man told investigators he had ended the relationship, blocked Knutson to focus on recovery and kept the messages because he believed her job status could make his account harder to believe. He gave those records to investigators on Oct. 23, 2024. Records from Monroe County Human Services also showed Knutson had provided treatment to him on Sept. 7, 2022.
The setting mattered. Monroe County describes its drug court as a specialized docket for defendants and offenders with alcohol or drug dependency problems. The county says the program relies on a judge, prosecutor, defense lawyers, law enforcement, community corrections staff, a coordinator, a case manager and treatment professionals who work together to monitor participants closely while they pursue recovery. That structure is one reason prosecutors treated the case as more than an improper personal relationship. Participants are supervised, tested and expected to comply with treatment and court rules, leaving them dependent on the professionals assigned to help manage their progress. Prosecutors said that dependence made the sexual relationship especially serious because it crossed a clear professional boundary. They also said the later false accusation consumed law enforcement time and put the participant at risk of being treated as a violent offender before investigators concluded the allegation had been fabricated.
By the time Knutson appeared for sentencing, the case had narrowed sharply from the original charges. Monroe County District Attorney Kevin Croninger said Knutson entered pleas to misconduct in public office and obstructing an officer. Curran then sentenced her to 18 months of initial confinement in state prison on the misconduct conviction, followed by two years of extended supervision after release. She also received a 180 day jail sentence on the obstruction conviction, to run concurrently with the prison term. The judge ordered her taken into custody immediately after the hearing. Prosecutors said Knutson admitted in both a letter and her plea that she had not been sexually assaulted and had made the accusation to avoid the consequences of having sex with a patient under her supervision. Publicly available Wisconsin Board of Nursing records also show that state regulators adopted an interim order in a separate disciplinary proceeding involving Knutson on May 8, 2025, although the public materials reviewed Friday did not clearly show whether a final order has since been issued.
Curran used unusually blunt language in describing the case. He called Knutson’s conduct “despicable” and said she was “an embarrassment to nurses everywhere.” He also said her remorse appeared “a mile wide and an inch deep.” Croninger echoed that view after sentencing. “The harm caused by Ms. Knutson was deep and significant,” he said, adding that she violated the trust between a nurse and a patient and then deepened the damage by making a false sexual assault claim. He said the case was particularly troubling because the man was a participant in drug court, a setting built around supervision, treatment and recovery. The patient was not publicly named, and officials said he was not charged with any crime tied to Knutson’s accusation after the investigation found the report was false.
The investigation also stretched across several agencies, showing how a complaint that began as an alleged assault grew into a broader review of public employment, treatment records and professional conduct. Prosecutors credited Lt. Jose Tovar, Deputy Chief Booker Ferguson and Officer Adam Malin of the Sparta Police Department, Monroe County District Attorney’s Office investigator Andrew Kuen, and Vernon County Sheriff’s Office investigator JoEllen Egge with helping build the case. Readstown, Knutson’s hometown, is a small village south of Sparta, and the prosecution unfolded in a region where treatment courts play an important role in handling addiction related cases outside traditional jail sentences. Some details are still not public, including how long the sexual relationship lasted, whether any co-workers suspected it before it was reported to state regulators, and when nursing regulators might issue a final public discipline order. Those unanswered questions leave part of the case outside public view even after the criminal sentence.
As of March 6, 2026, Knutson was serving her sentence and no new court hearing was immediately listed in public reports. The next public milestone may come if Wisconsin nursing regulators issue a final order in the separate discipline case tied to her license and conduct.
Author note: Last updated March 6, 2026.