St. Cloud Man Sentenced in Child Harness Case

ST. CLOUD -- A Stearns County judge has sentenced a St. Cloud man in a case where he was walking two children with harnesses around their necks and jerking on those harnesses.

68-year-old Waldamar Tischner was sentenced to 20 days in jail and a five-year stay of imposition.

Tischner had pleaded guilty to one felony count of malicious punishment of a child stemming from the February 2012 incident.

The stay of imposition means if Tischner has no same or similar crimes during that five-year probation period, his charge will be reduced to a misdemeanor.

The children attended a daycare at Tischner's home.

According to the criminal complaint, as many as five witnesses reported to police seeing Tischner push the kids down to the ground and pull them back up again by their collars. Police also noticed scratches and red marks on the children's faces and chin.

Tischner told police at the time he was upset with the children, but never placed a harness around their neck or harmed them.