Affluenza strikes again. A du Pont family heir who received no prison time after pleading guilty to raping his 3-year-old daughter in 2008 faces a lawsuit from his former wife that accuses him of sexually abusing his toddler son. For the 1%, even a conviction of child rape is no longer a guarantee of jail time.
As USA Today report:
Robert H. Richards IV, 47, on probation after pleading guilty in 2008 to fourth-degree rape of his daughter, has never been charged with crimes against his son. The lawsuit filed Tuesday in Superior Court provides in-depth details about a child rape case that did not receive media attention and Delaware authorities never disclosed publicly.
But Richards also happens to be a member and heir of two prominent Delaware families — the du Pont family, who built the worldwide chemical empire, and the Richards family, who co-founded the prestigious corporate law firm Richards Layton & Finger. His grandfather is Du Pont family patriarch Irenee du Pont, and his father, Robert H. Richards III, was a partner in the law firm until his 2008 retirement.
Richards IV is unemployed, supported by a trust fund and paid $1.8 million for his 5,800-square-foot mansion near Winterthur Museum. He also lists a home in the exclusive North Shores neighborhood near Rehoboth Beach as a residence, according to the state’s sex abuse registry. A trust fund baby and convicted child rapist.
According to Delaware Online:
The lawsuit argues that statements Richards made while on probation are evidence he admitted in April 2010 to sexually abusing his son. Those assaults began around December 2005, when the boy was 19 months old, and continued for about two years, the lawsuit said.
The revelations came, the lawsuit claims, while Richards was taking a lie detector test, ordered in an attempt to get him to be more forthcoming about his sexual history. Richards told the examiner he “was very concerned that something happened with his son, but that he has repressed the memories.’” He told the examiner he worried that his acts were “similar to what happened with his daughter,” the lawsuit said. “But he promised that whatever I did to my son, I will never do it again.”
Several times during 2005, Richards entered the bedroom of his 3 year old daughter at night while she slept, and penetrated her with his fingers while masturbating — according to court documents. He told her “to keep what he had done to her a secret,” but in October 2007, she told her grandmother, Donna Burg, who informed Tracy Richards, the child’s mother. The girl was taken to her pediatrician, where she was able to explain the abuse and New Castle County police arrested Richards that December.
Attorney General Beau Biden’s Office obtained a grand jury indictment charging him with two counts of second-degree rape.