A Stillwater mortgage broker will spend six months in jail and pay nearly $5,000 in fines for criminal sexual conduct and furnishing liquor to minors after admitting that he assaulted friends of his teenage daughter at underage drinking parties.
Michael Bergum, 36, of Bayport, was sentenced in Washington County District Court late Friday after pleading guilty in May to two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of furnishing alcohol to minors, both gross misdemeanors.
Bergum, a broker with Mortgage Financial Services, Inc., was charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct in December and April following allegations that he touched his daughter's friends, who were 18 and 16 at the time, while under the influence of alcohol at his Bayport home.
Bergum has been through an in-patient alcoholism treatment program and has been sober for eight months, his attorney, Craig Cascarano, said at his plea hearing this summer. Bergum said days of heavy drinking impaired his ability to remember what happened.
When he is released from jail, Bergum will remain on probation for 10 years, register as a predatory offender and is not allowed to have contact with female juveniles, with the exception of his daughters. Bergum was also sentenced to jail time to run concurrently with his six-month sentence for unrelated drug and domestic abuse charges.
ABBY SIMONS
