photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Mateo Wills, left, leaves the courtroom Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, after pleading guilty to aggravated kidnapping and aggravated indecent liberties with a child. His attorney, Hatem Chahine, is at right.

Updated at 4:35 p.m. Friday, Aug. 22

A former Raintree Montessori School employee accused of inappropriately touching two preschoolers three years ago at the private school took a plea agreement on Friday and faces a sentence of more than 15 years in prison.

Mateo Clavel Wills, 22, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated kidnapping and one count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child on Friday in Douglas County District Court. Several of his original charges were dropped as part of the plea agreement; he was originally charged with four counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child under the age of 14, two involving a 3-year-old and two more involving a 4-year-old.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Judge Sally Pokorny accepts a guilty plea from Mateo Clavel Wills, left, on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Douglas County District Court. Seated with Wills is his attorney, Hatem Chahine.

The cases were originally charged under Jessica’s Law, which generally carries a life sentence. Under the plea agreement, arrived at by defense attorney Hatem Chahine and special prosecutor Joshua Ney, the Jessica’s Law component was dropped.

The parties agreed to recommend a durational-departure sentence of 186 months, or 15.5 years, in prison for the offenses. That’s 155 months for the kidnapping count and 31 for the indecent liberties count, to run consecutively. Wills will also have to register as a violent offender and a sex offender for life.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Special Prosecutor Joshua Ney on Nov. 19, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

The parties indicated that a durational departure to 186 months from the standard sentence of 214 months (155 months for kidnapping and 59 months for indecent liberties) was appropriate because Wills has no prior criminal history, has accepted responsibility for his crimes and has followed all the conditions of his house arrest and recommendations in his mental health evaluations over the past several years.

Wills was in the Douglas County Jail from the time of his arrest in July 2022 until he was released to house arrest in April of 2024, and he will receive credit for time served while under arrest.

Judge Sally Pokorny carefully walked Wills through the plea agreement and paused frequently to make sure he understood. Among other things, she told him that she was bound to stay within Kansas Sentencing Guidelines but that she was not bound by the recommendations of the parties. Under the state guidelines, she can sentence Wills to up to 226 months, or nearly 19 years, in prison.

“I do have the authority to sentence you to that. Do you understand that?” she asked Wills before he entered his guilty plea. “Yes,” he responded.

Wills’ sentencing is set for Oct. 30. Chahine requested that Wills remain free on bond until sentencing, and the state did not object to that request.

Friday’s guilty pleas bring to a close a three-year legal process involving numerous delays, motions and appointments of different defense attorneys and special prosecutors due to conflicts of interest. One particularly drawn-out motion involved the admissibility of Wills’ confession to the crimes, which Pokorny ultimately ruled would be admitted, noting the voluntariness of his statements and the unusual “kindness and gentleness” of the police interrogation.

In that confession, Wills told police that he “went too far” in touching the children while they napped, that he was curious about vaginas and that he felt bad about touching them but felt good that “I got caught.”

The abuse came to light when one of the children told her mother about it, as the Journal-World reported.