Man accused of kidnapping Wisconsin teen convicted of federal sex crimes

A 41-year-old Arkansas man accused of kidnapping a pregnant 16-year-old girl from Beaver Dam in 2025 pleaded guilty to child sex crimes in a federal court in Arkansas.

As part of a plea agreement, Gary Day pleaded guilty to one count of enticing a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity and one count of producing child sexual abuse material. Four other charges were dismissed.

A sentencing date has not yet been set, according to online court records.

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In addition to the federal case, Day has an ongoing case in Dodge County Circuit Court, in which he is charged with two counts of abducting a child and two counts of exposing genitals or intimate parts to a child. In that case, he is held on $2 million bail. He has a telephone scheduling conference scheduled for Aug. 10.

Court records indicate Day was moved from Dodge County Jail to Greene County Detention Center in Paragould, Arkansas, in May.

The case garnered widespread attention in February 2025 when an Amber Alert was issued for the then-16-year-old girl. At the time, the girl was three months pregnant with Day's child.

She was found safe in Nebraska two months later. Day was arrested.

The family of the girl, who is now 18, previously spoke to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but declined to comment on Day's federal conviction until the conclusion of Day's Wisconsin case.

The following information is from facts stipulated in Day's federal plea deal:

• In May 2020, Day was convicted in an Arkansas circuit court of endangering the welfare of a minor. An affadavit for that case states that in September 2019, a baby was injured while in Day's care. As a result, Day was sentenced to six years of probation.
• In December 2024, probation and parole agents were conducting an office visit with Day when they found a Snapchat conversation on Day's phone between Day and a 16-year-old girl. Messages sent between April and July of 2024 indicated that Day knew the girl was 16, and that they discussed having sex and Day driving to pick the girl up in Wisconsin and bringing her back to Arkansas.
• After the probation and parole agents saw the messages, they conducted a home visit at Day's residence in Austin, Arkansas. There, they located female toiletries, beauty products and clothing. They later found the girl at a gas station in the same town.
• The girl told a forensic interviewer that she and Day were boyfriend and girlfriend and that they have had sexual intercourse. She was returned to her family in Wisconsin. (According to the Wisconsin criminal complaint, the girl's parents knew their daughter had left home in July 2024, but believed she was living in Beaver Dam.)
• Day was held for several days at a detention center in Arkansas, before he was released and placed on a GPS monitor on Dec. 23, 2024.
• On Jan. 22, 2025, during a home visit and office visit, probation and parole agents reviewed Day's phone and saw he had several social media accounts under a fake alias, as well as messages on his phone and social media accounts that were sexual in nature. Agents instructed Day to delete his social media accounts, and to charge his ankle monitor, which was frequently getting low battery alerts.
• On Feb. 1, 2025, an agent received an alert that Day's ankle monitor battery had died. Day texted the agent the same day saying the battery was malfunctioning. The agent asked Day to report to the probation office on Feb. 3, 2025, but he never showed up, and failed to answer calls or texts. Agents determined he was not at his house.
• Around 8 p.m. that same day, the Wisconsin State Patrol issued an Amber Alert for the missing 16-year-old girl from Beaver Dam.
• Day's SNAP card was used at a Walmart in Missouri Feb. 4, 2025, but there was no sighting or sign of either Day nor the teenage girl until two months later, when someone at a Nebraska gas station recognized the two from the Amber alert and contacted police.
• In a police interview, the girl said that for the previous two months, she and Day drove through several western states and stayed off the grid to avoid detection. Day admitted to having sex with the girl in Arkansas, where the age of consent is 16, but denied having sexual contact in any state where the age of consent was 17 or 18.
• A forensic download of Day's phone, seized in December found child sexual abuse material from when the girl was in Arkansas between July and December 2024.

Contact Kelli Arseneau at (920) 213-3721 or [email protected]. Follow her on X at @ArseneauKelli.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Man accused of kidnapping Wisconsin teen convicted of federal sex crimes