By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

According to Court records via the local news, a former middle-school para-educator pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of Communicating with a Minor for Immoral Purposes after she allegedly facilitated the statutory rape of a thirteen year old girl by her husband.

The former Kennewick, WA educator acted as an intermediary in the exchange of “love letters”, providing a cellphone,  and arranging for sexual relations between the child victim and her husband, a former Umatilla County Oregon Corrections officer.

I have often lamented in the past that virtue has its limits but depravity knows no bounds. And with these two having positions of both authority and responsibility to the public, especially children, there simply is no redemption they may qualify.

The educator’s husband earlier received a ten year prison sentence for Rape of a Child while she received a gross-misdemeanor Communicating with a Minor for Immoral Purposes, reduced from a Class C Felony.  While details were not immediately available as to the plea negotiations I suspect it was possibly in exchange for cooperation. She is to serve thirty days in jail and be required to register as a sex offender.

While I am not going to criticize the prosecution in this matter I have to question a general policy of going for a very safe prosecution when instead of settling for prosecution based solely on the communication there would instead be strong probable cause to go the inchoate route by charging her with conspiracy to commit rape of a child, which in Washington is punishable at one seriousness level below that of the base crime. (i.e. She would receive a Class B Felony to his Class A crimes).

The former guard pled guilty last December to sexual exploitation of a minor, child molestation, communicating with a minor for immoral purposes and two counts of possessing depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.  He previously worked at the Two River’s Correctional Facility. Prosecutors allege that his wife used her position at the middle school to locate a victim for her husband to exploit.

I choose here not to reveal some of the victim statements made by and on behalf of the child victim, due to the permanence and ubiquitous nature of information on the Internet that she will eventually have to reckon with later in life, but trust me when I say that having read these assertions, my utter contempt for these two predators could not be greater.  Yet when coupled with his own words at his sentencing along with his uncontrollable sobbing during the hearing, he is as equally pathetic:

“I wish I could tell (the girl) that none of this is her fault. This is my own fault and I pray with everything that I am that she will forgive me.”  He said he is on “the edge of hopelessness,” and begged for help to get his head cleared and soul mended. He even suggested a state mental hospital instead of prison. “I fear going to prison and not getting the help that I need. I won’t survive it.”

By Darren Smith

Sources: Tri-City Herald and KOMO News

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