Custodial dad gets 7 years in prison for raping daughter (La Crosse County, Wisconsin)

So how did this dad--identified only as BRIAN--get custody of his daughter when she was 13? Did the mother die or otherwise become incapacitated? Was it through the courts? Not one word of explanation here. All we know is that this @$$hat started raping his daughter almost immediately, practically as soon as she came in through the door, and didn't stop until a year later, when the daughter finally told someone at school. And then he tried to blame the girl for the abuse. Typical.

INVISIBLE MOTHER ALERT: Where is Mom? Why the change in custody? Why, why? Journalists need to start asking the right questions.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_15348961

La Crosse man gets 7 years in prison for raping daughter
By Chris Hubbuch
La Crosse Tribune
Updated: 06/22/2010 08:30:16 AM CDT


Just after Father's Day, Brian heard his daughter's voice for the first time in nearly a year.

From her new home in New Jersey, the 15-year-old told a judge how her dad destroyed her ability to trust.

"What my dad did to me really hurts me," she said over a speaker phone. "He should have protected me instead of hurting me."

What her father did, according to a criminal complaint, was rape her repeatedly, beginning when she went to live with him when she was 13 and continuing for a year until she told someone at school. When questioned by police, he blamed her.

District Attorney Tim Gruenke described the breach of trust: "She was not able to tell a parent she was being sexually assaulted. Her parent was the person doing it."

It was a crime no one could explain.

Not his mother. Not his attorney. Not him.

It's difficult to understand how someone with education, a work ethic and no criminal history could come before him for such a serious crime, La Crosse County Circuit Judge Scott Horne said.

"I honestly don't know," Brian said. "I know what I did was wrong. It's hard for me every day to realize what I did to my daughter, and I can't fix it."

The 37-year-old La Crosse man, whose full name is being withheld to protect his daughter's identity, pleaded guilty in May to incest with a child. A charge of repeated sexual assault of a child was dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

Only his mother spoke on his behalf at his sentencing

"I don't know why it happened," she said. "He knows better."

Weeping, Brian said he's always loved his daughter and wished it had never happened.

"I'm sorry, honey," he said. "So sorry."

Horne then sentenced him to seven years in prison, where he said sex offender programs would help him understand why it happened.

"(She) has lost her father, someone she should have been able to turn to for guidance," he said. "She can't have that."