FOND DU LAC, Wis. — A mother and her boyfriend received maximum sentences for trafficking and sexually assaulting the woman’s own daughter in Fond du Lac.
Elia Antonio was sentenced to 34 years in prison for trafficking her 12-year-old daughter in May 2024.
Her boyfriend, Juan Rocha Mejia was sentenced to 40 years in prison for sexually assaulting the child in the back of a van in exchange for paying Antonio $250.
Antonio pled not guilty to felony charges of human trafficking and failure to protect a child, and two misdemeanor counts of bail jumping in May.
“The gift of motherhood is the greatest gift in all of human existence,” Fond du Lac County Circuit Court Judge Laura Lavey stated during Antonio’s sentencing. “No doubt in court’s mind that you, Ms. Antonio failed in that responsibility in one of the most heinous ways possible. Not only did you fail to protect her. You actively participated in trafficking her.”
Rocha Mejia pled not guilty to 1st degree child sexual assault – contact with a child under age 16, child enticement, false imprisonment, and strangulation/suffocation. Prosecutors said Mejia blindfolded and suffocated the 12-year-old in the back of a van before she escaped to a nearby home in 2024.
“Indigency and lack of education is noted but they are not mitigating circumstances,” Judge Lavey said during Rocha Mejia’s sentencing. “You don’t need to go to school to learn of human decency and kindness. You don’t need to go to school to learn you don’t treat children as property or worse. . . not excused by any culture differences in one’s own upbringing. Children are not for sale.”
