After Grooms performed the sex acts, photos of the teen were posted by a “John Doe” and appeared on underground child pornography sites.
Advertisement
KTVO reported that Grooms was in custody until he pleaded guilty in July-a total of 860 days since being charged.
Wapello County Attorney Gary Oldenburger defended the plea deal in a statement Thursday in an effort, he said, to correct “grossly inaccurate” information being spread about the case.
He will be forced to register as a sex offender and could be put back in jail if he violates any of the conditions of his parole. He said the teen was duped into the act by child pornographers posing online as a teenage girl. Federal investigators became aware of a child pornography video in which an unidentified man is seen sexually abusing an infant, Inquistr reported.
Many people have criticized the judge, identified as Judge Randy Degeest, for his seemingly lax sentence. Despite not being publicly outed by the feds, however, Kraigen Grooms would find himself spending the next two years sitting in the Wapello County Jail awaiting trial while prosecutors built a case against him.
Radio Iowa quoted Oldenberger as saying, “In this situation, the parents of this victim were very insistent that Mr. Grooms not spend time in prison or a lot of time and in jail and were mainly concerned that he get treatment and that he would be on the sex offender registry”.
Authorities also learned that the abuse was streamed live and then recorded by a remote viewer in New Orleans from his or her own computer, according to a criminal complaint.
Advertisement
However, Oldenburger said Grooms was masturbating in the video. They arrested Grooms fewer than 30 hours later. Oldenburger says the toddler was not raped or physically harmed. A psychologist found Grooms was unlikely to commit sexual abuse in the future. He was charged with second-degree sexual abuse, which is considered a Class B Felony in Iowa, punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
