New Claim: Steven Avery Accused Of Raping Niece, 17, Year Before Halbach Murder

Steven Avery’s chilling criminal history was inexplicably downplayed on hit Netflix docuseries Making a Murderer, the infamous case’s prosecutor Ken Kratz alleges.

In his new book Avery: The Case Against Steven Avery and What Making a Murderer Gets Wrong, the former Wisconsin-based District Attorney — who notoriously convicted Avery, now 54, of raping and murdering 25-year-old photographer Teresa Halbach on Halloween 2005 — claims the creep was accused of raping his teen niece just one year before the killing.

The disturbing accusation was never covered on the wildly popular show, which painted Avery as perhaps an innocent victim in a police conspiracy.

According to Kratz, Avery allegedly sexually assaulted his 17-year-old niece in his sister Barb Janda Tadych’s trailer during the summer of 2004.

“True to form, Avery threatened to kill the teenaged female relative, and her family, if she reported the assault,” Kratz writes in the shocking tell-all about the convicted killer.

However, Kratz says, the girl’s mother contacted local authorities. The teen agreed to cooperate with cops, but only after Avery was locked up for the Halbach murder.

Though Avery was to be prosecuted by the Brown County District Attorney’s Office, the alleged victim decided she did not want to go through a painful trial. The case was ultimately closed.

Kratz claims to have sick details of the rape’s aftermath. Avery’s then-fiancée Jodi Stachowski allegedly told police that her boyfriend confessed to having sex with his niece, but justified his actions by claiming she was not a “blood relative.” (The girl was apparently adopted.)

Of course, one year after the alleged attack, Avery was arrested for brutally raping, murdering and mutilating Halbach’s body. He is currently serving life in prison, pending a 2016 appeal. (Avery has always maintained his innocence in the crime.)

In another instance more than 20 years before the alleged assault, authorities were investigating claims that Avery raped a 19-year-old babysitter at his home, Kratz says.