BELLOWS FALLS-Former Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG) conductor, co-founder with his wife of Southern Vermont Lyric Theatre, and music minister at Grafton Community Church Kenneth J. Olsson, 54, is being held without bail after arraignment in Windham County Superior Court.
According to Vermont State Police (VSP), on May 12, 2025, detectives from the VSP’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Troop B East, were notified of a report of sexual assault, lewd or lascivious conduct, and domestic violence perpetrated against a juvenile victim.
Probable cause was developed through investigation to charge Olsson for the crimes stemming from 2016 to 2024, according to the report.
Olsson, who has been working for UPS, turned himself in at the Westminster barracks on Jan. 14. He was arraigned Jan. 15.
Windham County State’s Attorney Steven Brown told The Commons the defendant has been held without bail “presumably because one of the charges includes a penalty of up to life in prison.”
That charge — one of several leveled against Olsson — is sexual assault of someone under the age of 16 years entrusted to his care.
The court record alleges that from 2022 to 2023 Olsson “engaged in a sexual act with another person under the age of 16 and the victim is entrusted to the actor’s care by authority of law or is the actor’s child, grandchild, foster child, adopted child or step-child.” That penalty is up to life imprisonment.
Previously convicted in 2000
In May 2025, Detective Trooper Brandon Groh investigated after a 15-year-old reported to a therapist that Olsson sexually abused the child while she was growing up.
The victim told investigators sexual assault and inappropriate touching allegedly began two or three years ago, but that Olsson had exhibited violent behavior — shouting and hitting — since the child was 5 years old.
Notes from the videotaped interview reveal the victim alleges to have been subjected to the alleged abuser’s anger repeatedly and that Olsson drank alcohol consistently. The 15-year-old alleges inappropriate touching became part of the abuse when she was about 10 years old.
In 2010, while living in New Hampshire with his family, Olsson was arrested for failing to inform state sex offender registries that he had moved Vermont to New Hampshire.
Court records show Olsson was convicted of sodomy in the third degree in 2000 in New York. That conviction obliged him to register as a sex offender and maintain that registration for 10 years from his probation discharge.
When he moved to Vermont again in 2007, apparently Olsson did register, and a state police check in February 2010 revealed he had been living in Walpole, New Hampshire, since 2009.
After the police involvement, Olsson registered with the New Hampshire sex offender registry and said he was working as a church music director.
Current searches of his name in the sex offender registries for Vermont, New York, and New Hampshire did not yield any results this week.
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.