Posted on 10/18/2005 12:20:21 PM PDT by raccoonradio
SALEM — A Salem man who gained access to a 9-year-old girl by offering her mother free cocaine pleaded guilty yesterday to multiple child rape charges and was sentenced to 15 to 18 years in state prison.
Richard Lapham's plea and sentence was the result of a last-minute agreement just moments before jury selection was set to begin for his trial in Salem Superior Court.
Judge David Lowy went along with the plea agreement, but added, "Obviously, there is no punishment commensurate with the evil that constitutes this crime."
Lapham, 39, was arrested in August of 2004 after police learned from an acquaintance of Lapham that he had been showing off photos of himself engaged in a sexual act with a young girl.
The acquaintance, Jill Pena-Contreras, told police that Lapham had been boasting of his ability to have access to the little girl anytime simply by offering her mother, Mary Jean Armstrong, the cocaine she craved, prosecutor Kate MacDougall said.
Pena-Contreras had grabbed two photos from Lapham's Lussier Street apartment, showing the little girl performing a sexual act on an adult man.
When police went to the apartment, they found a disturbing tableau — a half-dressed Lapham greeted them at the door, warning the officers there were kids in the apartment. Police made their way past a pornographic video playing on the television, little girl's clothing strewn about and cocaine and marijuana on a coffee table and into a bedroom, where the girl was huddled naked under a blanket, her mother and autistic 14-year-old brother sitting nearby.
Investigators later learned that Lapham would send a cab to pick up the girl, her mother and brother at their Beverly apartment and bring them to Salem. Other times, he would visit them in their apartment on Mill Street in Beverly. The abuse began around the time the girl turned 9, when Lapham first suggested the idea.
Defense lawyer Neil Rossman said Lapham's drug addiction was to blame for his actions, saying the cocaine had taken away his inhibitions.
"Drugs are the cornerstone of this whole case," Rossman said outside court, echoing Lapham family members who had written letters of support months ago.
MacDougall said she wasn't buying that excuse and neither should the judge, pointing out that there are many people with severe drug problems who do not sexually abuse children.
MacDougall also reminded the judge that Pena-Contreras, the woman who reported the abuse to police, was also struggling with a severe drug addiction.
Lowy called Pena-Contreras "truly a hero" for going to police.
MacDougall said the plea agreement, for her, was simply an effort to spare the child from having to go through a trial and in no way reflects any mitigation.
"It's quite simply difficult to imagine a more egregious set of facts," MacDougall told the judge.
The little girl was particularly vulnerable, the prosecutor said, being raised by a mother who was incapable or unwilling to properly care for the child. Armstrong's lawyer believes the woman, with an IQ of 59, is not competent to stand trial.
The girl, now 10, is living with a foster mother in an undisclosed location.
In a victim-impact statement, her foster mother said that while the girl has made progress toward recovery, it's unclear if she will ever be able to have a normal life. Lapham made the little girl believe "she was his special girlfriend," offering her money and gifts.
"Richard Lapham is a sick person who stole the innocence of a young child," the girl's foster mother wrote in the victim-impact statement, read by the prosecutor. The girl is still "enslaved" by memories of what has happened to her and the things she has seen, said the woman, who was not identified in court.
The little girl was not brought to court yesterday but had been expected to testify had the case gone to trial.
In all, Lapham pleaded guilty to seven counts of child rape, three counts of indecent assault and battery, two counts each of posing a child in a state of nudity, possession of child pornography and child endangerment and charges of possession of cocaine and disseminating obscene material to a minor.
After Lapham completes his prison term (he must serve a minimum of 15 years before he becomes eligible for parole), he will be on probation for five years. He will be required to register as a sex offender and take part in sex offender treatment and drug treatment and will be barred from any unsupervised contact with children.
If he violates his probation, he could face up to life in prison.
"This is a tragedy of proportions that go beyond the case," Rossman said outside court. "His life, a promising and productive life, has been ruined. The little girl's life has been irreparably damaged, if not destroyed; time will only tell. And the Lapham family has been destroyed emotionally."
Members of Lapham's family attended yesterday's hearing. Most of them were visibly upset during and after the hearing.
A hearing in Armstrong's case is scheduled for tomorrow. Her lawyer is asking to be present during an evaluation by a prosecution-hired expert, who is seeking to either confirm or rebut the defense's conclusion that she is not competent.
Two other men charged in connection with the case, Robert L'Italien and Patrick Doyle, are due in court early next month.
---"Drugs are the cornerstone of this whole case,"---
Yeah, they're the cornerstone excuse you're using to use to absolve this subhuman scum from responsibility for his actions.
This perp won't last long on the cellblock.
I hope he enjoys Hell, 'cause that's right where this SOB is headed.
Prayers for the little girl.
>>"His life, a promising and productive life, has been ruined
Yeah, he's a victim, too...
The "mother" needs to be charged as an accessory to this. She was pimping her 9 year old girl out for coke.
If she's not competent to stand trial, then what in the hell was she doing in custody of two children? AAARRRGGGHHH!! (pounding my desk).
As the proud dad of twin infant girls, he should hav egotten 15 to 18 rounds in the head.
Looks like this guy going to have to get his thrills And Jollies in the General Population.
Hope he likes his sex on the rough side.
Looks like the "Witch City" has some real life horrors. Put him in the stocks, or the "stump" method, or (Howie Carr ping) the "woodchipper" (bzzzzzzzzzzz)
One Indian tribe (I forget which one) had an interesting penalty for rape. They gave the rapist to the woman who had been raped, and any other women who had ever been raped. The women would take the rapist out of camp. They usually came back in 4-5 days, without the rapist. The usual punishment was cutting of a certain body part with sharpened fingernails, followed by cauterization. Resharpen the fingernails, and repeat.
True. As the article says, the girl (9 at the time) is now living with a foster mother and she's probably lost custody of the 14 (now 15) year old autistic boy. Abd maybe I missed
it, but did the article mention these poor kids having
a _dad_? I don't think so. (They think the autistic boy
was also abused)
Why waste a bullet, rope can be recycled.
I would not be sadly suprised if she and he never knew their dad.
In good old days such offenders were set into a tree stump: a decent size (1.5-2' diameter) tree stump of sound wood was split down the middle with a wedge, the perp was forced to sit upon it with his appendages in the slot, and then the wedge was pulled out.I remember wedgies ...
Just about the time that I've heard the lowest human depravity, I read something like this. Disgusting living human flesh like this bad apple and the child's mother! Aaarrrggg!
For starters, you can blow his balls off with a shotgun.
No marijuana charge?
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