In April, the Frank Report examined the case of Allison Leigh Schardin of Minneapolis.
The 38-year-old mother, after a fight with her husband during a hotel stay, went to the hotel hot tub, where she met two 15-year-old boys visiting from Colorado and later met them in their hotel room.
Schardin dreamed of becoming a professional singer. However, after getting married and having two children, she needed to earn a living. This led her to work as a waitress at Louis Ristorante & Bar, where she spent nearly a decade until her disastrous night changed everything. Louis fired her. Her husband filed for divorce.
Police charged her with third and fourth-degree sexual conduct, which are felonies that can result in a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
On October 4, Schardin pleaded guilty to one count. Under the agreement, she will face no more than eight months in prison and likely be required to register as a sex offender. The sentencing will take place on January 10, nearly one year after the incident. The boys, now 16, will be allowed to speak to the court about the impact of Schardin’s crime.
According to the complaint, one of the boys, who was 15 at the time, stated he “wasn’t really on board with it,” even though when she asked if he wanted more, he replied, “sure.”
It is possible that the encounter left the teenage boys with lasting trauma, as the prosecutors allege.
It’s also likely that they, like many teenage boys who have had an encounter with an older woman, will not feel any lasting remorse. They may feel some embarrassment about the situation becoming public, resulting in an arrest and potentially requiring their involvement as witnesses in a trial.
Neither boy sought out police. Schardin wasn’t aggressive, but rather pathetic and drunk. Even if she had tried she was no match physically for the young athletes.
If it hadn’t been for the gossip among teammates about an older woman seen in the hot tub who later came to their room and stupidly showed up at their hockey game the next day, prompting adults to make inquiries and leading to a call to law enforcement, Schardin might have gotten away with it. The boys would have returned to Colorado and Schardin might have returned to her husband.
Typical victim impact statements dilate on the trauma and lasting effects of a perpetrator’s crime. No doubt, the prosecutors want the boys to claim lifelong terror and trauma from their 15 minutes in bed with a drunk woman, who they asked to leave and she did.
An alternative is that the boys, while acknowledging it was regrettable, even “creepy,” as one of them said at the time, admit they’ll survive. After all they are not babies no matter how hard the prosecutors try to make them weak and almost in diapers when the incident happened.
If they have any of the chivalric in them, they might even ask for leniency for the ill-fated woman. The foolish woman has experienced the loss of at least temporarily her children, husband, reputation, and now a lasting online record that will make employment difficult all the days of her life. She will likely have to register as a sex offender in any community she may care to hide and try to start again.
Perhaps the young men may ask the judge to spare her prison. That will be a gesture they will feel good about all the rest of their lives.
Schardin perhaps is the one, not the teenagers, who will need therapy to live somehow with blowing up her life in one stupid, alcohol and temper-fueled evening of insanity.
On every sober day that remains of her life, she will regret that one night she self-destructed, ignored her husband, got intoxicated, and traded her family and future for an hour of trying to return to her youth.
If she goes to prison, when she is released, she will be 40 years old. From there, where does she go?
Schardin with her husband, who filed for divorce last December
