WILLMAR -- Edward Alan Ruchti, 32, of Kerkhoven, was ordered Wednesday to serve 180 days in jail, complete sex offender treatment and finish the remaining recommendations of his psycho-sexual evaluation, including the sex offender program.
District Judge Donald M. Spilseth had ruled on June 20 that Ruchti violated the conditions of his probation in a 2002 assault case by failing to show up for sex offender treatment and failing to do the assigned homework in the program. However, Spilseth said at that hearing that Ruchti wasn't going to be sentenced to prison.
In Kandiyohi County District Court on Wednesday, Ruchti was given credit for 50 days already served in jail and will be allowed to attend the sex offender treatment program of his choosing, which is the Christian Recovery Counseling program in Golden Valley.
Ruchti was originally sentenced in May 2003 to 91 months in prison, which was stayed, and placed on 18 years of probation for the March 2002 first-degree assault that nearly killed his then-wife. At the sentencing, Melissa Ruchti provided an affidavit that stated the activities in which she was injured were consensual, and Spilseth stayed the prison sentence.
In July 2009, Ruchti was sentenced to 21 months in prison for assaulting and strangling a woman in a separate domestic incident that happened in February 2009. He was released from prison and placed on intensive supervised release from August 2010 to March of this year. Soon after that intensive supervised release ended, he was terminated from the sex offender program.
