Iowa pedophile who raped young child almost 100 times and live-streamed abuse sentenced to 120 years in prison
An Iowa man has been sentenced to 120 years in prison for sexually abusing and assaulting a girl from the time she was an infant to when she was six years old, and for also live streaming himself raping her on social media.
The man, 29-year-old Steven Douglas Crook Jr. who hails from Bloomfield, was handed the maximum sentence for his crimes on Monday, June 3. According to the Ottumwa Courier, Crook had been arrested in February 2018 after he was reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The man also pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual exploitation of a child.
According to a release by US Attorney Marc Krickbau, Crook had frequently clicked pictures and taken videos of the extreme abuse on social media apps such as Live.me and had encouraged his followers to watch the videos. According to police records, he was estimated to have raped the child "less than 100 times". The child was eventually rescued from Crook's home when she six years old by law enforcement.
According to the Des Moines Register, investigators found lots of electronic devices and gadgets which contained videos of the abuse in his possession. One of the folders had been labeled "child porn and baby rape". US District Court Judge Stephanie M Rose sentenced Crook to prison and called his crimes "horrific" and his actions "insidious and manipulative".
She added that the man had controlled the victim and hidden his crimes for many years. She also said that the sentence was just since Crook is "so very dangerous" to children. Attorney Krickbaum said, "Any time a child is abused in Iowa, if we have photographs or videos of the abuse, the defendant can be prosecuted in federal court, and face decades, if not life, behind bars."
"Steven Crook will spend the rest of his life in federal prison, where he belongs. We want to make sure that other defendants like him, who are a threat to our children, face the stiffest penalties federal law allows," he added.
Crook's live-in girlfriend Kendra Hoover was arrested in January 2019 and charged with 14 felony counts including seven counts of neglect of a dependent person and seven counts of child endangerment in this case. Authorities revealed that she had seen the videos of the horrific abuse that her boyfriend was imposing on the child and continued to leave the child alone with him.