Abigail Faust

Introduction

Abigail Michelle Faust is a 25-year-old former fifth-grade teacher at River Crest Elementary School in Hudson, Wisconsin, who pleaded guilty on September 14, 2026, to child sex crimes stemming from two separate criminal cases. Appearing in St. Croix County court, she admitted guilt to one count of child enticement-sexual contact and one count of second-degree sexual assault of a child in a case involving two 15-year-old victims she met outside of school. Her case became public in tandem with that of Madison Bergmann, a fellow River Crest fifth-grade teacher now serving a six-year prison sentence, after the two women were caught texting each other about abusing their own victims. Faust was taken into custody pending her sentencing hearing, scheduled for December 15, 2026.

Background Information

Faust worked as a fifth-grade teacher at River Crest Elementary School in Hudson, a small town in western Wisconsin on the Minnesota border. She was first charged in August 2025 over an alleged inappropriate relationship with one of her own students — accusations that included keeping the boy after class, pushing him against a wall and kissing him on the cheek. Those charges emerged in the shadow of the Bergmann case: Faust’s prosecution followed the charging of Madison Bergmann, 26, another fifth-grade teacher at the same school, for the sexual assault of one of her own students. According to the criminal complaint, Faust and Bergmann texted each other about their relationships with the students they abused, and investigators zeroed in on Faust while working the Bergmann case. Bergmann pleaded guilty last year to two counts of sexual misconduct by school staff and one count of child enticement for sexually assaulting one of her 11-year-old students — conduct discovered when the boy’s parents found the lewd text conversations on his phone — and is serving a six-year prison sentence.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated vs. alleged. Faust’s guilty pleas to one count of child enticement-sexual contact and one count of second-degree sexual assault of a child, entered in St. Croix County court on September 14, 2026, are matters of court record. The remaining counts in that case were dismissed but read in, and the separate case alleging she kissed a fifth-grade student was likewise dismissed but read in — the conduct connected to those dismissed counts remains an unproven allegation. A second Minnesota case involving the alleged sexual assault of a child in Washington County remains pending.

The case Faust pleaded guilty to involved two 15-year-old victims from outside of school. She had been charged with 13 counts in that case, including second-degree child sexual assault and child enticement. In court on Monday, September 14, 2026, she pleaded guilty to one count of child enticement-sexual contact and one count of second-degree sexual assault of a child; the other charges were dismissed but read in, meaning the judge may consider them at sentencing, and the first case — the one involving her former student — was also dismissed but read in. Under the plea deal, prosecutors agreed to toss the kissing case and not to ask for a prison term of more than 15 years. The New York Post reported that Faust admitted in court to sexually assaulting one of the 15-year-olds while working as the family’s nanny in Washington County, Minnesota. A separate criminal case remains pending against her in Minnesota for the alleged sexual assault of a child in Washington County: authorities were called to May Township on a report of criminal sexual conduct, one of the teens told investigators that Faust sexually assaulted him, and court records show she assaulted one of the victim’s friends while the family was on vacation.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The back-to-back scandals involving two teachers at the same small-town elementary school have rocked Hudson, according to the New York Post’s account of the plea. Faust herself addressed the court directly at the plea hearing, telling the judge: “What I did was not a mistake or a lapse of judgment.” She also said she is seeing a therapist. The immediate consequence of the plea was loss of freedom: Faust was taken to the St. Croix County Jail pending her sentencing, an unusual step that reflects the severity of the admitted conduct. The plea agreement bound prosecutors to recommend no more than 15 years in prison, but the length of her sentence now rests with the judge, who under the read-in arrangement may weigh the dismissed allegations from both dismissed cases when imposing it.

Current Status

As of mid-September 2026, Faust is in the St. Croix County Jail awaiting sentencing, which is scheduled for December 15, 2026. Her Wisconsin cases are resolved by plea as to the two admitted counts, with the dismissed counts read in for sentencing purposes. Separately, a Minnesota case is pending against her in Washington County for the alleged sexual assault of a child, meaning further criminal exposure survives even after the Wisconsin plea. Bergmann, whose text messages with Faust exposed the whole arrangement, is already serving her six-year sentence.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Faust’s teaching career is over: she is a former River Crest Elementary School teacher with felony convictions on two child-sex counts entered by her own admission, and no return to the classroom is plausible given the six-year sentence her co-scandal teacher received for comparable conduct. Her plea caps her Wisconsin exposure at 15 years under the deal, but she will also live as a registered, convicted child sex offender, and the pending Washington County case could add a second conviction in Minnesota. Her own words in court — that what she did “was not a mistake or a lapse of judgment” — foreclosed the mitigation narrative typically offered at sentencing, and her admission that the abuse continued across state lines, in her nanny work as well as her teaching, is what kept a second prosecution alive.