Logan Thompson
MARION CO. – Many Marion County residents are dismayed and bewildered at what appears to be yet another display of favoritism toward a young sex offender.
The case involving Logan Thompson’s seemingly-never-ending running afoul of the law was supposed to have taken a punitive turn on September 1.
On that day, however, instead of being told that he’d have to serve a jail term, he was let go with an order to report to probation…and nothing else.
The backstory is well-known among Marion County, and in particular, Salem and Odin, residents, since Thompson’s family has been associated with an ATV business in the area, and Thompson fancies himself some sort of country music performer.
His 2013 high-profile charge of Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse of a victim five years or more younger than Thompson – she was 13, he was 19, and he was sneaked into her room in rural Odin in February 2013 – was reduced to Criminal Sexual Abuse of a victim that can’t consent upon a mid-November 2014 plea deal. After the plea, which got him 30 months probation, a 90-day jail sentence which was stayed “if he didn’t get in any trouble,” and $2,967 in fines and fees.
In August of 2015 he got into trouble: Thompson caught a DUI in neighboring Jefferson County and two months later, took a plea to the Class A misdemeanor, getting court supervision for 24 months.
It took awhile for Marion County to find out about it, apparently, and they filed a petition to revoke his probation in June of 2016, this after an eyewitness filed a report that Thompson was observed drinking at the Red Dog Saloon in Salem…something that was prohibited under the terms of his probation in Marion and court supervision in Jefferson.
Instead of following what the law proscribes, the Marion County authorities last year opted to extend Thompson’s probation for another 30 months…and that, even, didn’t follow immediately, but was instead to start in September of 2016 and would be reviewed a year later, at which time the 90-day jail sentence would have to be served.
The review happened on September 1, 2017…and there is where the outrage came in.
Rather than being punished for the screw-ups – one of which, the drinking at the Red Dog Saloon, wasn’t even charged – and having the 90-day jail stay imposed, the judge in the case, Mark Stedelin, opted to just toss out that jail stay part of the sentence…this despite the fact that Thompson had also just decided not to complete his sex offender counseling from the original case.
Public outrage has grown so much that a resident in the Marion County area has formed a Facebook page called “Boycott the Logan Thompson Band,” and apparently, it’s impacted the band’s gigs…or at least their presence on social networking. While his father Jim Thompson continues to post items about being in the band (he’s a drummer) as well as pics of his aged self with much younger and equally-unattractive females, there’s nothing much going on with Logan himself on social networking (that can be detected, at any rate; he might very well have his pages locked down, which is never good for promoting a band).
Part of the outrage that’s stayed steady for more than four years is the fact that the Logans engaged in a smear campaign against the little girl and her family, which grew so vicious on social media that then-prosecutor Matt Wilzbach felt compelled to address it in November of 2014. And yet, it still continued.
The situation may have gotten a little out of control in another aspect at that time: Anthony Shaw, a neighbor of the Thompsons in Odin, was accused of killing a dog belonging to the Thompsons, this back in early November of 2013.
Shaw admitted to police that he’d done the deed, after they were called when the dog was found dead in a ditch.
No reports indicate why, however, leading many to wonder if the acrimony between the two families didn’t have something to do with the sex case.
Shaw wasn’t charged with killing the dog until April of 2015. There’s been no explanation offered for that, either….unless Wilzbach wanted the furor over Thompson’s sex crime to die down a bit.
Locals who know the score in Marion County have opined that another 30 months of probation for Logan Thompson just gives him a little more rope with which to hang himself, as he is reported to have not completed his alcohol counseling treatment in Jefferson County; it’s unclear whether they’re aware of that or not. If the young man has a drinking problem at age 24, the likelihood that he’s going to AA with it is a really slim one.
There have been no future court settings for Thompson as of press time, as he’s apparently prompted the court to believe he’s now on the straight and narrow.