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Richard Wendell Sotka of Wisconsin is serving two consecutive life sentences for the murders of his girlfriend and her best woman friend.
A Wisconsin man serving two consecutive life sentences for the murders of his girlfriend and her best woman friend — he said he was enraged and humiliated because he found them engaging in sexual activity — is facing another trial, this time on charges of assaulting a jail guard.
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Richard Wendell Sotka, 50, is scheduled to be tried in Green Bay, Wis., January 8 on one count of battery by a prisoner, Law & Crimereports.
Sotka is serving the dual life sentence with no possibility of parole for the 2023 murders of his girlfriend, Rhonda Cegelski, 58, and her best friend, Paula O’Connor, 53. He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder with a dangerous weapon.
The two women were stabbed to death January 29, 2023, at the duplex Cegelski and Sotka shared in Green Bay. Cegelski’s daughter found them and called police. They had been stabbed several times in the face and neck with an eight-inch blade.
Sotka confessed to the murders, saying he had felt humiliated and gone into a jealous rage after finding the women having sex. He was convicted in March 2023 and sentenced two months later.
“You’re like a predator in the wild, going for the neck,” Judge Beau Liegeois said in pronouncing the sentence, according to Green Bay TV station WFRV. “That’s the only way to really describe it.”
At the time of the murders, Sotka was out on bond on an unrelated stalking charge from Ohio and required to wear an ankle bracelet with GPS monitoring. He cut the bracelet and fled, driving a truck that belonged to his employer as far as Arkansas before police caught up with him, as rhe truck had a GPS monitor. Sotka had his passport and $4,000 in cash with him. While confessing to the murders of Cegelski and O’Connor, he has said he is not guilty of the stalking charge.
The latest charge stems from an incident with a guard at the Brown County, Wis., jail on October 12, 2023. “Sotka screamed something, and that is when Sotka struck me for the first time with a fist,” the guard said, according to a criminal complaint quoted by TV station WLUK. “His fist hit me on my left ear. The strike hurt my ear and I saw stars. I yelled, ‘What are you doing?’ I heard Officer AG call for backup on the radio. Sotka continued to strike me over and over again with his fist and we moved back. It felt like all the strikes were on my head. I did not give Sotka permission to strike me, cause me pain, or cause me harm in any way. At one point I went into a defensive position as he kept hitting me. I finally was able to extend my arms and stop his strikes from hitting me. Officer AG arrived, and I felt Sotka’s level of tension drop.”
Sotka has pleaded not guilty, and his trial has been postponed twice.
