Source: US FBI
ABERDEEN – United States Attorney Alison J. Ramsdell announced today that U.S. District Judge Charles B. Kornmann has sentenced a man from Bullhead, South Dakota, convicted of Aggravated Sexual Abuse of a Minor and Failure to Register as a Sex Offender. The sentencing took place on August 4, 2025.
Travis Anthony Weasel, age 45, was sentenced to 30 years in prison and five years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $200 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund.
Weasel was indicted by a federal grand jury in December 2023. He pleaded guilty on May 19, 2025.
Travis Weasel was convicted of Sexual Abuse of an Incapacitated Person in 2011 for having sexual intercourse with an unconscious woman at a house party in Bullhead, South Dakota, and encouraging an adolescent boy to join him in the “fun.” Following his most recent release from prison for this offense in May 2021, Weasel decided to stop registering as a sex offender. He did not register again until his arrest in February 2024.
On January 26, 2023, Weasel, destitute and homeless, asked a childhood friend if he could sleep for a few nights in a spare bedroom in the friend’s home in McIntosh, South Dakota. McIntosh is a community within the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. Weasel’s friend took pity on him and permitted him to stay. That evening, the friend’s 15-year-old daughter came to visit. Weasel first gave adulterated alcohol to his friend. When the friend passed out, Weasel shooed the other adults out of the home, opining they were too drunk to be around a child. Weasel then pressured and threatened the girl to drink the adulterated alcohol. She eventually relented, losing consciousness soon after she imbibed. When she woke, Weasel was having sexual intercourse with her in the spare bedroom. When the girl screamed to her father for help, Weasel told her he would kill her father and the family dog with her father’s handgun if she persisted. The girl pleaded for Weasel to stop, but he continued to rape her until ejaculation. The minor then ran to the living room to escape, but Weasel caught her by the backpack. The girl slipped the backpack from her shoulders and fled the home into the snow. Her grandmother found her later that night crying in a snowbank.
“Protecting children from sexual abuse is amongst our highest priorities at the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” said U.S. Attorney Alison J. Ramsdell. “When we can prosecute these heinous crimes at the federal level, we are able to seek decades-long sentences without the possibility of parole, thereby achieving the justice these victims deserve and safeguarding our communities from sex offenders for years to come.”
This matter was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office because the Major Crimes Act, a federal statute, mandates that certain violent crimes alleged to have occurred in Indian country be prosecuted in federal court as opposed to State court.
This case was also brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.
This case was investigated by the FBI, the Bureau of Indian Affairs – Office of Justice Services, and the United States Marshals Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney Carl Thunem prosecuted the case.
Weasel was immediately remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.