Baby Raped: Will Justice Be Served?

The Seattle Times ^ | 12-15-03 | Nicole Brodeur

[sherim]

Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.

Nicole Brodeur / Times staff columnist Baby raped: Will justice be served?

The lights are up, the Christmas Ships are out, but dark things churn in the waters this season.

On Sunday, this newspaper unveiled a yearlong investigation that found that 159 school athletic coaches have been reprimanded or fired for sexual misconduct in the past decade. Of those, 98 continued to coach or teach, while schools, the state and even some parents looked the other way.

I hope no one looks the other way in the case of another predator.

Last month, Joseph Lehman Jr., 38, pleaded guilty to raping his girlfriend's 2-month-old daughter last December. Because of his plea, the state's standard, seven- to 10-year penalty likely will be suspended when Lehman is sentenced Friday at the King County Regional Justice Center.

Instead, Lehman may receive just six months of jail time, three years of treatment for sexual deviancy and a lifetime of supervision. A court psychologist has deemed him "amenable to treatment."

Court officials stress that this improbably light sentence has nothing to do with the fact that Lehman's father, Joseph Lehman Sr., heads the Washington State Department of Corrections.

Roxanne Crowder wonders.

She is the mother of Lehman's victim (she says the baby is his, making the unthinkable even worse) and the one who walked in on Lehman that day. Crowder has held nothing back about Lehman — or about her worry that he will get special treatment. That has meant naming her baby and describing her abuse on radio and television and to me.

"I will do whatever I have to do to ensure that another child is not hurt by him," Crowder said. "He already robbed my daughter of some of her innocence. I am not going to let that happen to another child."

She asserts that Lehman is manipulative and that his family hasn't acknowledged that what their son did was wrong.

"I agree Joe needs counseling," she said. "But he needs counseling in prison."

On that day, Crowder was resting at their Auburn apartment when Lehman went to change the baby's diaper. Crowder heard the baby screaming, went to investigate and saw what she can't forget.

It took her three weeks to call police.

"I will always feel guilty that I didn't break up with him or kick him out for all that time," she said. "I just couldn't process it. It's almost like a movie you saw."

A year later, the baby still wakes up screaming and pushes her mother away. Crowder has to turn on a light so the baby will know it's her.

The whole thing makes me sad, for someday it will be too easy for this baby-turned-woman to connect the dots.

I hope then that she sees her mother's crusade as The Right Thing to Do, especially in a society where schools and churches turn their heads, witnesses clam up and judges go easy, not realizing that in doing so, they create more victims.

That could change Friday. One man sentenced, a baby's purity somehow restored and unknown others spared.

And if that doesn't happen?

Crowder sighed: "I take some relief knowing he will have to face God someday."

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@s....

More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists. Save her a seat in the courtroom.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company

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[SarahW]

That's loved, past tense. She thinks, in her own words, that he is "disgusting and sick". She thought he was her soul mate. Thought he was a good father, even.

BTW, in another googled up article, it is revealed that he got involved with her AFTER she was pregnant.
He chose a pregnant woman to date, and to find "true love" with. To her, it was a miracle. To him, it might have been a plan.

I don't wonder that he went trolling for a weak and vulnerable person to con with faux "affection", in order to gain access permanently to a child to gratify his pedophilia.

At least she had the strength to get over her initial shock and denial and do something...there are thousands of mothers who just stick their heads in the sand, permanently.

I wonder what, at age 23, her disability is. (She gets social security disability payments.)

I'm for certain glad that I never had to walk in her shoes.
The man who made her dreams of love and security come true,
who has pretended to be a good and committed partner and father....the cognitive dissonance would be devastating to the strongest person, and I'm sure he picked her out precisely because she wasn't strong..

[Homer1]

The founding fathers really missed the boat by not allowing "cruel and unusual punishment."

[keri]

Thanks for the info. Even if your mini-analysis is correct, none of it excuses her behavior toward her daughter. It does rather reinforce the idea that she needs help.

We disagree. I'm not going to electronically psychoanalyze this person or her "relationship" with this fat loser.

I'll leave it at that.

[BlueNgold]

Anything short of hanging him by his testicles on a meathook until he bleeds to death will not be justice!

[scan58]

Even with a plea bargain, six months would be a LONG time to survive the prison justice system for baby rapers.

That's the truth. I would just bet that the guards would see to it that this guy gets put in with the general population, too. There are guys in there with "nothing left to lose" that will see to it that this guy gets his.

[CajunConservative]

Although, with his daddy being the head of the department of corrections this particular perp would be coddled. I think that is what the OP's article is about.

[CajunConservative]

I don't think the founding fathers were considering the vile evil morally bankrupt perps we have now. These kind of criminals would have never lived to see the inside of a courtroom back then either.

[SarahW]

She didn't deal with it fast enough, but she did end up doing the right thing. She's right to fight for a long prison sentence for fatty... he's going to re-offend if he isn't put away.

[SarahW]

I'm not sure if its the kind of help you want her to get, but she is getting counseling, according to another
A king County Journal article.

From the same article:

" Crowder is in counseling and trying to work through her grief over what happened.

Although Lehman isn't the biological father of her daughter, Abigail, he was there for most of the pregnancy, was the first person to hold her, helped pick out her name and was a father to her in every sense of the word, Crowder said.

``I had a family with him,'' she said.

Because he helped pay the bills when the couple lived together on Auburn's Lee Hill, Crowder has had to move back in with her mother. She believes her daughter has some sense of what happened and she worries she will remember things she shouldn't.

Most of all, she wants Lehman to pay for what he did to Abigail and for betraying her trust.

``I don't want another child to go through that and I don't want another parent to have to go through what I had to go through,'' she said."

She's right in the sense that another parent and another child will go through hell if he isn't put away. He should be put away permanently, if you ask me.

[SarahW]

agreed.....Thanks to folks like Joe Lehman, Sr. (the perp's dad)

see: http://www.adutytoprotect.org/related/strong_beliefs.asp

Very interesting background on the perp's dad. On his watch, several rapist/murderers have been let out unsupervised to kill and rape again - Joe doesn't want
to be accountable for that.

Incidentally, there is a short paragraph about joe Jr being "developmentally disabled", and what is referred to as a single brush with the law.... with Joe Sr denying this has had any impact on his decision to coddle inmates.

[cyborg]

Wow that's strong... GOOD

[TC Rider]

The reporterette's outrage is a little hard to swallow. Nicole Brodeur worked at out local lib rag, the Raleigh News and Observer, until a few years ago.

In '98, she was a total kneepadder for Clinton. I guess we've learned what it takes to get her attention.

[CajunConservative]

The reporterette's outrage is a little hard to swallow. Nicole Brodeur worked at out local lib rag, the Raleigh News and Observer, until a few years ago.

In '98, she was a total kneepadder for Clinton. I guess we've learned what it takes to get her attention.

Only the most depraved person wouldn't be outraged that a baby raper is getting slap on the wrist because his daddy is the head of the department of corrections. The victim was 2 months old. So she's wrong every other time, at least this time she has it right.

[CajunConservative]

I would not be surprised if the perp was developmentally disabled, probably explains why the mother took three weeks to report and is on disability at 23. When I was doing case management for the mentally ill there were several pedo's receiving services throught the agency I worked for and most were borderline to mild mentally retarded. They lacked the ability to stop themselves from repeating their crimes and IMHO they should have never been set free to wreak havoc on other innocent kids. If the opportunity presented itself, they would perp in a heartbeat.

The father is culpable in this crime and should be removed from his position, especially after reading that link.

[ishabibble]

I sure will. Hanging for both of these animals is too good.

[scan58]

Hmm...missed that part. That's what I get for just skimming the article.
You're probably right there. But, he ought to be turned loose among several guys in there for burglary or armed robbery. I've heard that the A/R convicts are the "elite" in the pen.
They love to smash guys like this to justify and rationalize their own crimes.

[Ciexyz]

Remember what Jesus said about people who harm children: It would be better if a stone were tied around their necks and they were tossed into water to drown. (Words to that effect.)

[LibKill]

May i suggest emersion in 18M Hydroiodic acid or 18M Cesium Hydroxide?.

You may. I suggest immersion in a tank full of hungry fire ants.

I have rarely read about anything so sickening, so evil as what this monster did.

[TheCookMan]

They said cruel AND unusual punishment.

I say we go with cruel.

[SendShaqtoIraq]

"We had a case like this come into our ER. A man had raped (intercourse) his girlfriend's 8 month old daughter. The baby had to have surgery right away."

You wouldn't be referring to a case in Rockport, Indiana, would you?