Grant Rodgers

grodgers@dmreg.com

An Iowa prosecutor is defending his handling of a plea agreement that led to no prison sentence for a 19-year-old man who pleaded guilty to a child molestation charge involving a toddler.

Kraigen Grooms pleaded guilty in July to one count of engaging in a lascivious act with a child and received a 10-year suspended sentence Monday. Grooms was identified and charged in 2014 during a federal investigation into a child pornography distribution ring, and a video was recovered showing Grooms assaulting a child.

Outrage has spread across the internet about the suspended sentence. An online petition has sought the removal of Judge Randy DeGeest for issuing the order.

But in a statement and interview with The Des Moines Register, Wapello County Attorney Gary Oldenburger defended the agreement.

"Much of the information being circulated is grossly inaccurate, and also fails to account for all of the factors considered in the resolution of a serious criminal case such as this one," his statement said.

Grooms, who was 16 when he committed the crime, was not willingly producing child pornography, the prosecutor said. The teenager had been tricked into performing the act by two child pornographers posing online as a teenage girl, and at one point he declined their requests to commit additional abuse. Oldenburger said that Grooms was masturbating in the video.

"While the abuse Grooms committed is disturbing, it would not be accurate to describe it as 'raping a toddler' as it has been described on certain websites," Oldenburger wrote. "The child was not injured, no pain was inflicted, and the child was too young to be even aware of what was happening."

Input from the victim's family also factored into the decision, Oldenburger said. Grooms and the victim are related, and the victim's mother works at a residential treatment facility for juvenile sex offenders. She was supportive of the suspended sentence as long as Grooms receives further treatment, the prosecutor said.

"Grooms was evaluated by an expert psychologist who has decades of experience in evaluating and treating sex offenders, and was not considered a high risk for committing future offenses," he said.

Grooms had been in jail for 860 days since being charged.

He would have likely served a very short prison sentence given his age at the time of the crime. The Iowa Supreme Court additionally has banned mandatory minimum sentences for juveniles. "A long prison sentence would likely have been overturned on appeal," Oldenburger wrote.

Producing child pornography is a federal crime that can lead to harsher penalties than those available in state court. But federal prosecutors declined to bring a case against Grooms because of his age when he committed the offense, Oldenburger said.

DeGeest on Thursday also filed an order with the court spelling out the reasons for the sentence. The judge wrote that Grooms has followed all the rules he's been subject to since his release from custody in July.

"The defendant’s need for rehabilitation and potential for rehabilitation is very positive," DeGeest wrote.

Grooms will be required to register as a sex offender.

Matthew Boles, Grooms' defense attorney, has not returned The Register's phone calls seeking comment.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.

0915 Press Release Grooms Final