A Wisconsin man and public school paraprofessional is currently behind bars after meeting a disabled woman online and beating her severely, according to law enforcement in Illinois.

Johnny Latiker, 51, stands accused of aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, grooming, and domestic battery causing bodily harm, according to McHenry County Sheriff’s Office records.

During his initial court appearance, Latiker’s defense attorney tried to frame the behavior at issue as the consensual expression of sexual fantasy and role-play between a couple who are, in fact, dating.

McHenry County Judge Cynthia Lamb sided with the state and ruled the defendant should be held in pre-trial detention for now.

Authorities issued a warrant for Latiker’s arrest on Aug. 7, court records show. He was arrested on Wednesday and appeared in court the next day.

Assistant State’s Attorney Daniel Conroy said the alleged victim lives with kidney cancer, is partially paralyzed and “mostly” uses a wheelchair to get around, according to a courtroom report by The Northwest Herald.

The prosecutor went on to describe the alleged attack that led to the charges by reading from a document written by a police officer after an interview with the woman on July 13.

The alleged victim said she and Latiker began dating in May. Then, one day, he allegedly locked her bedroom door, put on fingerless leather gloves, then began punching and choking her. As the strangulation continued, the defendant allegedly demanded the woman look him in the eyes. Latiker also put a pillow over the woman’s head, attempted to sexually assault her, and threatened her life, authorities say.

The woman suffered five broken ribs along with several bruises and contusions – the alleged result of being punched repeatedly on the side. The woman said her assailant threatened her after the fact. Latiker allegedly said he would come back and hurt her if she told anyone about the encounter, Conroy told the court.

In court, Latiker, a Milwaukee resident, said he works with special-needs children at Cedarburg High School in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. The defendant also said he works as a hang-gliding instructor during the summer during music festivals.

The prosecution used the man’s work against him.

Conroy reportedly read aloud text messages in which the defendant allegedly said he likes “naughty stuff” and that he had a “fantasy” involving children as young as 4 years old, a 10-year-old girl he once saw playing on a trampoline, and the high school girls at his job.

“I can actually start grooming,” the defendant allegedly wrote in one text message.

In other text message, Latiker allegedly described a desire to kidnap a child from Marengo – a small town in McHenry County where the victim hails from – because “no one would know.”

The prosecutor said the text messages show the defendant is “extremely dangerous” to children and that both of his sources of employment offer him “limitless contact” with children.

Assistant Public Defender David Giesinger essayed a defense that the man and woman were simply “talking about sex fantasies.”

The defense attorney noted how Latiker had once asked the alleged victim what her “hard line” was so he did not go over said line. Later, when the woman said the defendant hurt her in one message, Latiker wrote back to ask what he did wrong so that it did not happen again, Giesinger argued.

Latiker also appeared to back away from some of the behavior highlighted in court, telling the woman at one point he “can’t do this fantasy stuff” because he was “starting to creep myself out” and negatively referred to their meet-ups as “playing that game.”

Meanwhile, in other text messages, the woman herself discussed “engaging in facilitating” those fantasies, the defense attorney said.

“These are two individuals engaged in roleplaying and fantasy,” Giesinger said – arguing the “nature of their relationship” centered on roleplaying and sexual fantasy-sharing.

The judge, for her part, rejected the defense’s version of events – settling on the primacy of the woman’s broken ribs and the contusions on her cancerous kidney. No relationship should result in such injuries, the court intoned.

Lamb, reading from the detention order, also lended credence to the state’s claims of grooming. The judge reportedly said Latiker “used his cellphone multiple times to coerce this victim to … give him sexual access to a minor … attempting to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice, a child to engage in sexual offenses.”

The defendant is next slated to appear in court on Aug. 21.