There something about convicted child molester Kraigen Grooms, 19, that fits the pattern of judicial restraint, even sympathy, shown to young offenders such as Brock Turner and Austin James Wilkerson. Can't quite put my finger on it.
In July, Kraigen Grooms, 19, pleaded guilty to one county of Engaging in a Lascivious Act with a Child.
Wapello County Attorney Gary Oldenburger told KTVO that Grooms, aka Kraigen Simmers, was sentenced on that charge on Monday.
Grooms received a 10-year suspended sentence and five years of supervised release.
Grooms, 17, at the time, shared images of him raping a toddler on the internet for an audience of creeps, and was caught planning his next.
Here is Tim Caya, an investigator who helped collar Grooms.
"Usually when you hear about this, it is old guys. It makes you wonder what was going on in his life to get him to this. I'm glad I helped catch him, but it makes you wonder about what is going on these days with kids doing this at such a young age."
It's almost as if the victim–a baby, let us not forget–is merely a prop in the grand tragedy of the suffering young rapist.
Perhaps a decade or more in prison is wrong for Grooms, a child himself at the time of the offense: he's already done two years inside as it is. But he still ended up treated with an incongruous lenience not offered to most people in his situation. So here we are, staring another empathy sponge for old men in the face.