Robert Richards IV was in 2009 convicted of raping his three-year-old daughter, seven years after she, then five, told relatives that she didn’t want “my daddy touching me anymore.” In an alarming twist, the judge who sentenced the heir to the du Pont fortune let him off with no jail time, arguing that six-foot-four Richards “will not fare well” in prison.

Instead of sentencing him to prison for raping a toddler, Judge Jan Jurden ruled that Richards would benefit from treatment. Critics have since noted that such treatment is usually only offered to drug addicts or those in possession of child pornography, not convicted rapists. The details of the case became public this month when Richards’s ex-wife sued him for damages related to the abuse of their daughter.

Here’s how The News Journaldescribes the convicted rapist in this case (emphasis added):

“Richards, who is unemployed and supported by a trust fund, owns a 5,800-square-foot mansion in Greenville he bought for $1.8 million in 2005. He also lists a home in the exclusive North Shores neighborhood near Rehoboth Beach, according to the state's sex abuse registry. His great-grandfather is du Pont family patriarch Irenee du Pont, and his father is Robert H. Richards III, a retired partner in the Richards Layton & Finger law firm.”

The heir to the du Pont chemical fortune also admitted to sexually assaulting his infant son. He was initially charged with two counts of second-degree child rape, which would have carried a mandatory 20-year prison term if convicted. Richards—again, accused of raping two of his own children—was released on $60,000 bail and eventually copped a plea deal that involved him admitting he had abused his children, but receiving the lesser charge of fourth-degree rape. That felony can carry up to 15 years in prison, though it’s not unusual for those convicted to face lesser time.

A number of sources, including the chief prosecutor in the Delaware county where the case was tried, said they found the judge’s justification for waiving jail time—that Richards wouldn’t do well in prison—highly unusual. One defense lawyer gave the following assessment to The News Journal: “Who thrives in jail?”

“It's an extremely rare circumstance that prison serves the inmate well,” Delaware public defender Brendan O’Neill told The News Journal. He surmised that the Richards case would make Americans wonder “how a person with great wealth may be treated by the system.”.

Sex offenders are often targeted by other inmates, so it’s not unusual for those convicted of sex crimes (especially in cases where children are the victims) to be placed in protective custody. But there’s a big difference between protective custody or solitary confinement in prison, and walking free after being convicted of raping your daughter and admitting to assaulting your son.

This is hardly the first time the du Pont family has found itself the focus of unsavory headlines. John du Pont shot Olympic wrestler David Schultz dead in the driveway of the family’s mansion in 1996. Two years later, the decomposing body of a Las Vegas prostitute was found stuffed in the air conditioner of a seedy motel. She was killed by three hired hands, and, as Dominick Dunne reported in Vanity Fair, the money traced back to the du Pont family. It appeared Lisa Dean, a du Pont, didn’t approve of her drug-addicted son dating a drug-addicted Vegas sex worker, so she and her husband, Christopher Moseley, had her killed. Both John du Pont and Moseley died in prison.