Families sobbed on Tuesday as a Delaware pediatrician went on trial for allegedly raping or sexually exploiting 86 young patients, all girls except one and almost all younger than three.
Earl Bradley has pleaded not guilty to 24 counts against him, and sat quietly in gray prison scrubs as a veteran state trooper spent hours describing the doctor’s cache of home videos of the assaults.
They were so “horrible,” testified state police detective Scott Garland, a specialist in forensic computer evidence. “They were beyond anything I had ever witnessed. Nothing prepared me for it.”
At one point, Garland recalled, when he was alone in a room watching videos of toddlers screaming, suffocating and passing out from forced fellatio, he became so angry he jumped up and shouted at the screen: “Let her go!”
Families of some victims were in the courtroom, and Garland’s graphic descriptions elicited muffled sobs, while a few hurried out in anguish.
The videos date from December 1998 to Dec. 13, 2009, just days before Bradley was arrested.
Superior Court Judge William Carpenter presided over the one-day bench trial in southern Delaware where Bradley, who was married with four children, had a practice from 1994 until he was arrested and jailed in December 2009.
His once popular Disney-themed office compound in Lewes, where he taped his alleged assaults for 10 years, went to auction, but with no takers. The toys he once used to quiet crying children were burned by the state rather than sold.
Bradley’s attorneys say the video evidence taken from his offices was seized without a proper warrant and violated Bradley’s constitutional rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Carpenter denied the defense attorney’s motion to suppress or throw out the evidence, and the trial became just a step on the way to an appeal.
The trial began with attorneys agreeing to consolidate 470 counts in the original indictment against Bradley into a new, 24-count indictment alleging 14 counts of rape and five counts each of assault and sexual exploitation of a child. Bradley could face life in prison for each of the 14 rape charges.
There was no cross examination of the state’s two police witnesses, no evidence from the defense and no closing arguments.
When the judge offered Bradley an opportunity to speak, the doctor made his longest statement of the day, saying: “I decided not to testify.”
Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, son of US Vice President Joe Biden, watched the trial and conferred with prosecutors. Because of a court gag order in place, Biden said he could not talk about the trial until after there is a verdict.
The judge said he would rule after reviewing 13 hours of video evidence. If Bradley is found guilty, his attorneys will implement their defense in an appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court, raising the claim of a warrantless search.
Carpenter gave no indication when he would rule.
Observer and criminal defense lawyer John Malik said Bradley’s best chance would be if the Supreme Court declared the evidence inadmissible because it was illegally seized.
“The Delaware Constitution affords Delaware defendants greater privacy rights than even the US Constitutition,” Malik said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AP
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Myanmar yesterday published a parliamentary bill proposing the death sentence for those who detain or violently coerce people into working in online scam centers. Internet fraud factories have flourished in Myanmar, part of Southeast Asia’s scam economy, targeting Internet users worldwide with romance and cryptocurrency investment cons. The multibillion-dollar black market attracts many willing employees, but repatriated foreigners have also reported being trafficked to sites in Myanmar and tortured by scam center operators. The draft legislation would allow capital punishment for “violence, torture, unlawful arrest and detention, or cruel treatment against another person for the purpose of forcing them to commit online scams.” The
RSS