A husband and wife from New York have pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a 17-month-old girl whom they babysat and made videos of, in what a judge described as “barbaric acts.”
Justin and Jessica Crandall have both pleaded guilty to federal charges tied to the sexual exploitation of the toddler.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office reportedly said that the couple provided day care to the girl starting around Thanksgiving 2016 until February 11, 2017 at their home in Sidney.
Prosecutors said that 28-year-old Justin Crandall shot videos and photos of himself using the child in sex acts.
Court documents say that authorities were alerted about the events in February, after someone reported receiving an image depicting a female toddler engaged in a sex act which Justin Crandall had sent.
The child’s mother reportedly told investigators at the time she noticed some changes in her child’s behavior, along with unexplained injuries.
The abuse of the 17-month old child was connected to Crandall’s meth addiction The Press & Sun-Bulletin reported.
Jessica Crandall reportedly admitted she and her husband engaged in “repeated sexual activities” which involved the child. according to court documents.
At a detention hearing in April, U.S. Magistrate Judge David Peebles described the crimes as “barbaric acts,”.
Both Justin and Jessica face a minimum penalty of 15 years in prison. Sentencing will take place on Feb. 23 in federal court in Binghamton.
Featured Image credit: New York State Police
This Mom Picked Up Her 8-Year-Old Daughter From Detention Then Learned She’s Been Locked In A ‘Jail Cell’
No parent likes the idea of their child sitting in detention. Usually, detention equates to staying late after school to sit in a classroom, supervised by a teacher. But for 8-year-old Allegra, it meant something a lot different.
When Allegra’s Mother, Connie, got a call from the local elementary school saying that her daughter was in detention, she was upset with her daughter. When she went to pick her daughter up from the punishment, she got really upset with the school.
She found her daughter Allegra serving detention not in a classroom, but in what she calls a “jail cell.”
The school called the 2×4-foot area a “detention room,” however, Connie thinks it’s much more cruel than that.
Connie also believes that her daughter shouldn’t have been in detention in the first place. The school say s that the 8-year-old apparently threatened another student while her Mother insists that she was standing up for herself against a mean bully.
Even if little Allegra was rightfully in detention, Connie says the conditions she’d been kept in were completely unacceptable. She had apparently “been crying for hours.”
Since the incident occurred, Connie says Allegra has been sick for three days and that she is “traumatized.”
What do you think of an 8-year-old sitting in detention?