Richard Lee Kruse, 63, and Charles Lee Kruse, 42, were federally indicted on Thursday. The criminal investigation initially began in September 2016, when a boy who was younger than five, accused Richard of sexually abusing him. Just days after the police interviewed him regarding the sexual abuse allegations, Richard attempted suicide on September 20th, 2016. Richard was charged with sexual assualt of a child in October 2016, and then sentenced a month later. Although, court records didn’t disclose his sentence.
Charles claimed he took the thumb drive from his father after the sexual assualt allegations came to surface. Charles also admitted to seeing nude images of the victim on the thumb drive and failing to tell the police about it. Law enforcement were ultimately able to identify Richard as a suspect because in one of the illicit photos stored in Charles’ computer showed his thumb and partial index finger wrapped around the victim’s waist. In addition to examining the fingerprints, Charles’ mother confirmed to the police that Richard had previously sawed off part of his index finger. The father and son were both arrested on November 9th, only two days after authorities located the images on Charles’ computer. Charles was indicted on possessing and distributing child pornography, while Richard is facing charges of producing child pornography and sexual abuse to a child.
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