ST. PETER — A former rural New Ulm resident was sentenced in Nicollet County court Tuesday on two counts of child endangerment.

Wendy Sorenson, 45, will serve 30 days in prison, with four days credited for time served and 335 days stayed for two years. The judge levied a fine of $980, and Sorenson will be under supervised probation for two years.

In addition, the judge agreed to a request from the father of one of the victims to require Sorenson to write a letter of apology to the two victims. The letter will be reviewed by the supervising probationary officer before it is delivered.

Two victim statements from involved girls identified only by initials were read. Both girls stated they did not want their mom to go to jail.

One argued that Wendy was also a victim of Robert Sorenson, whose controlling behavior scared her into compliance.

Sorenson read her own statement before conviction. In it she detailed her history as a victim of abuse as a child and her two previous marriages that she characterized as abusive relationships.

Included in her statement was a description of her time with Robert Sorenson, who she said was nice at first, but turned controlling.

Behaviors such as monitoring her conversations with fathers of children at Wendy’s daycare and preventing Wendy from supplying her own lunch at work were used as examples.

Wendy asked for a minimum sentence with no jail time so she could build a healthy relationship with her daughters.

“I am perfectly capable of watching children and perfectly capable of not hurting them or abandoning them,” she said.

She cited her previous experience as a daycare provider and babysitting for a police officer as evidence that she did not endanger children.

Judge Allison Krehbiel sentenced her to half the standard sentence of 60 days. She cited the statements of the daughters as the only reason Sorenson received less jail time.

Krehbiel said Wendy’s roughly 15-minute statement focused too much on how she was the victim instead of her daughters. “This is not about you,” Krehbiel said.

Wendy was sentenced in relation to charges against Robert who was sentenced to nine years for criminal sexual conduct.

Robert was charged with abusing two girls. One was under the age of 18 and the other under the age of 16.

The charges included molestation and secretly recording one of the girls in the bathroom. He admitted to taking one girl to a motel where they smoked marijuana and gave each other massages.

Reports of the abuse made it to the Nicollet County Sheriff’s Office last year. When police raided the Sorenson home, they found sex toys and pornographic DVDs and CDs readily available to the children.

Since the abuse charges, Wendy has been getting a divorce from Robert. She also was implicated in a fraud investigation of the Sorenson household receiving aid and under-reporting income.

Connor Cummiskey can be emailed at ccummiskey@nujournal.com.