Courtesy Photo James William Freese II appears in this Michigan Department of Corrections photo, taken in January 2019.

ALPENA ― A man who pleaded no contest to raping multiple children in Alpena County won’t get the break he thinks he deserves after the Michigan Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of his 15-year prison sentence.

In 2015, an Alpena judge sentenced James William Freese II, now 47, to 15 to 40 years behind bars for the sexual assault of multiple children, including relatives, in the 1990s.

Three days into a jury trial where Freese faced 12 counts of criminal sexual assault, the prosecution broke down Freese’s alibi for the times of the assaults. In response, Freese pleaded no contest to 11 charges with the agreement the prosecution would drop one charge that would have exposed him to a mandatory sentence of 25 years imprisonment.

Courts treat a no contest plea as a guilty plea for sentencing.

Freese later appealed his sentence, saying he should be allowed to withdraw his plea to some of the charges because nobody told him he would have to wear an electronic monitoring device for life as part of his sentence.

The Appeals court in January said no, and on Wednesday, the Supreme Court said it would not hear a further appeal from Freese, who will remain in the Kinross Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula.

Freese is the son of James William Freese Sr., now 65, in 2015 found guilty of five counts of sexual assault and sentenced to 10 to 40 years in prison. The elder Freese is held in a separate U.P. prison with an earliest-release date of August 2025.

This story has been edited to reflect that James William Freese II is the son of James William Freese Sr. The father’s name was incorrect in an earlier version of the story.