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FARGO-A Fargo concert promoter and journalist pleaded guilty in Cass County District Court Wednesday, Sept. 28, to charges of sexual assault and disorderly conduct in connection with two separate incidents in which women said they awoke to find him touching them.
In one case, a woman told authorities Christopher A. Hennen, 39, sexually touched her while she was asleep.
The woman told police in July that the incident happened in April after she, Hennen and a group of other friends had been out drinking.
Most of her friends left after the group returned to her apartment, but Hennen stayed and they talked and ate food before falling asleep, the woman told police.
She said she woke up to find Hennen touching her private areas.
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The disorderly conduct charge related to an incident in March or April 2015 and involved another female acquaintance of Hennen's, according to court documents.
The woman involved in that case told police in July that she was reporting the incident at that time because she had heard of something similar happening to someone else.
She said went to bed after drinking with friends and awoke sometime later to find Hennen on top of her, with his tongue in her mouth.
Hennen did not appear at a hearing Wednesday in Cass County District Court, but his attorney, Ross Brandborg, entered guilty pleas on Hennen's behalf.
Brandborg asked Judge Susan Bailey for a deferred sentence, meaning the case could be dismissed and Hennen's record kept clean if he followed the recommendations of his probation.
Brandborg said his client takes the charges seriously and has embarked on therapy.
The judge, however, adopted a sentence recommended by prosecutors and gave Hennen 30 days in jail, which were suspended, and he was placed on unsupervised probation for 360 days.
He was also ordered to pay fees totaling $250.
Hennen has booked concerts at The Aquarium, a concert venue in downtown Fargo, for about a decade. He has also worked as an editor and writer for the High Plains Reader, a Fargo newspaper, and as a producer for his brother, Fargo talk show host Scott Hennen.
