A former University of St. Thomas football player was sentenced to a year in the Ramsey County workhouse for the 2018 dorm room rape of a fellow student.
Former St. Thomas football player receives year workhouse sentence for dorm room rape
Defendant to serve one year at Ramsey County workhouse, 30 years probation.
January 9, 2022 at 7:36PM
Nicholas Robert Schnack, 22, was convicted of rape in October and remained free on bond until his sentencing Friday in Ramsey County District Court. Judge Joy Bartscher ordered Schnack to 30 years' supervised probation and imposed a $500 fine along with his yearlong confinement in the Ramsey County Correctional Facility, otherwise known as the workhouse.
Bartscher stayed a 12-year prison sentence, a downward departure from state guidelines.
Schnack is required to attend sex offender programming. He cannot vote or possess a firearm and is subject to random testing while prohibited from consuming alcohol or controlled substances. Other conditions include a ban of pornography, strip clubs and adult stores.
According to court documents, the rape took place at the university's Brady Hall dorm in November 2018. Schnack went to the victim's room after a party in a different dorm room.
Two of the woman's friends visited moments later and saw that she was injured. The victim said in the complaint that Schnack bit her lip, drawing blood, before assaulting her for an hour despite repeated objections. The woman went to campus health services the next day, where an examination revealed several injuries on various parts of her body.
She withdrew from St. Thomas, as did Schnack, who in the fall of 2019 joined Drake University's football team in Des Moines. After he was charged with the rape in November 2019 and the complaint was filed, he left Drake.
Staff writer Paul Walsh contributed to this report.
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