Kansas mother hurt by lighter plea deal for man who repeatedly raped her child

ERIE — The mother of a child rape victim trembled in the courtroom as she read her daughter’s description of shattered trust and night terrors that have consumed her life.

She was in Neosho County District Court to hear the judge determine a prison sentence she feared would be insufficient under a plea deal made by prosecutor Linus Thuston. She made her own plea: Send the rapist to prison for the maximum time possible.

“I do not believe that the current plea agreement accurately represents the crimes that were done to my daughter,” she told the judge Wednesday. “My daughter deserves justice.”

Judge Daryl Ahlquist stuck with Thuston’s deal, sentencing the man who confessed to repeatedly raping an 11-year-old to seven years in state prison. With good behavior, he could be free in less than six years, before the victim turns 18.

The mother, who cried during sentencing, was prepared to be disappointed. She revealed in court that she had secretly recorded a conversation with Thuston in case he later betrayed her trust.

In the recording — which Kansas Reflector obtained and verified by the file’s date stamp — Thuston outlines a deal that would require a longer prison sentence than the one the rapist received, and includes a conversation about Thuston representing the rapist’s family members in unrelated cases.

That potential conflict of interest and plea deal in the child rape case raises more questions about Thuston, a Republican who has been under scrutiny for two years amid a state criminal investigation into allegations that he accepted fees for reduced jail time and misused the funds. The status of that investigation is unclear.

In court Wednesday, Thuston denied that he had misled the mother about the terms of the plea agreement when they met in January.

The mother, seated among supporters in the courtroom, stood up and told the judge she had an hour-long recording of  that conversation. If the judge were to listen to just the first 10 minutes, she said, he would know she was telling the truth.

Ahlquist appeared troubled by the exchange between Thuston and the mother.

“I appreciate that you have that, but I’m not going to listen to it at this time,” Ahlquist said.

Kansas Reflector doesn’t identify survivors of sexual violence without their consent and is not naming the mother or abuser in order to protect the child’s identity.

‘The best deal’

Thuston has been scrutinized before for granting diversions or probation in cases involving child sex crimes. A 2022 investigation by Kansas Reflector examined concerns about those cases, as well as his handling of finances and alleged conflicts of interest.

In this case, Thuston charged the man last May under a statute known as Jessica’s Law, which applies to an adult sexually assaulting a child younger than 14. If convicted at trial, the sentence would be a minimum of 25 years to life in prison.

Thuston met with the child’s mother on Jan. 5 to discuss the status of the case. She said she recorded the conversation because she was aware of past plea deals made by Thuston involving child sex crimes. She shared a copy of the recording with Kansas Reflector, and allowed a reporter to look at the audio file’s date stamp on her phone.

She said she didn’t tell Thuston she was recording their conversation “because I wanted him to be authentic.”

In the recording, Thuston told her he was working on a plea deal involving a felony that would require 10 years in prison. He said he would rather reach an agreement on a lesser charge than go to trial and “force this kid to get up and describe their first sexual experience in front of a jury.”

Thuston said he was in a strong position to bargain with the defense attorney because the man had confessed to his crimes. Thuston said the offer to enter a plea for aggravated sodomy “has essentially been accepted. We just haven’t done it on the record yet.”

The mother said she was confused because the charge wouldn’t align with the facts of the case.

“Sometimes we will create things, essentially, to go with what we already have, to get to the point where we need to be,” Thuston said in the recording. “So we may say it’s agg sodomy when we know it’s really rape, but just to get us to where we need to get, whether it’s sodomy or rape, it’s getting to the number that we’re looking for.”

In this case, the number would be “essentially right at 10 years,” he said.

The mother also wanted to know about Thuston’s professional relationship with the defendant’s mother and grandmother. She said they have “made it known that they have you hired in private practice.” And she had seen Thuston talking to the defendant’s mother in the hallway of the courthouse.

Thuston said they were talking about an unrelated civil case.

“But from the outside peering in, you could see that that might be misinterpreted,” she said.

“There’s been no conversation with any member of his family,” Thuston said.

The mother was horrified in February when Thuston presented a different deal in court that involved three lower-level felonies — aggravated indecent liberties with a child, indecent solicitation of a child, and aggravated endangering a child.

During Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, Thuston told the judge that he had gone over the revised plea deal with the mother when they met in January. He said the deal for a more serious felony was proposed and rejected last August.

He repeated that timeline during a brief interview after the hearing. But after learning that Kansas Reflector had listened to the recording of the Jan. 5 meeting, and that the mother contends there was no other communication about the plea deal, Thuston said he told her about the revised terms in the courtroom on the day the plea was entered.

During the interview for this story, Thuston defended the revised agreement, which lowered the prison sentence from 10 years to 7.

“Without forcing the child to testify, this was the best deal I was going to be able to get,” Thuston said. “He was going to go to prison, and we’re talking about a two-and-a-half-year difference.”

Steve Leben, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who spent 27 years as a judge in Kansas, said a prosecutor has discretion to offer plea deals that victims don’t like. Victims often want more prison time, Leben said, especially in rape cases. The victim is still entitled to be heard by the court, he added.

‘Things are not fair’

The child rapist appeared relaxed Wednesday as he sat in the jury box in black-and-white striped jail garb with flipflops, handcuffs and ankle shackles. He eyed the mother until it was time for him to appear before the judge. He declined to make a statement to the court.

The mother asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence allowed for the crimes included in the plea deal, but the judge declined because the maximum of 87 months wasn’t much different from the 84 months the parties had agreed upon.

The man will get credit for the time he has spent in county jail while the case was being litigated. Upon release, he will have to register as a sex offender for life.

The mother sat in the witness stand to read a statement she had prepared, as well as a letter written by her daughter.

“I have nightmares about it every night,” the girl wrote. “I can’t stop thinking about you, and that is not a good thing. But most of all you made me feel bad for telling on you.”

The mother paused at times to wipe away tears or clear her throat.

She continued reading the letter: “My mom is a good mom because she cares for us with love and she treats us like a good mom should, and I don’t like seeing her upset, sad or even crying because of how much pressure people make her have. It’s not fair. I think things are not fair.”