The judge says the defendant was a victim of rape himself at the age of 9, and spared him a prison sentence. Was it right?
By Scott McCabe
Washington Examiner
WASHINGTON — The former NPR science editor who pleaded guilty to downloading videos of young children being raped will not have to spend any time in prison, a federal D.C. judge ruled Thursday.
Cheers, tears and claps erupted in the packed courtroom when U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle announced she was going to spare David Malakoff from the six to eight years in prison that he was facing based on federal guidelines.
“I say, ‘What further pound of flesh is needed to achieve the goal of punishment?'” asked Huvelle.
In explaining the exceptional step of sentencing below the guidelines, the judge said Malakoff had already thrown away a successful career and has to live with the stigma of being a sex offender for most of the rest of his life. But the strongest argument for the lesser sentence, Huvelle said, was that Malakoff had been raped as a 9-year-old boy and he had looked at the child pornography over five hours last year to relive his own rape.
