Steven Douglas Crook Jr., an Iowa father, will spend the rest of his life in prison for sexually abusing his own daughter from the time she was born till the age of six.
According to official court documents, Crook’s girlfriend and the mother of the child, Kendra Hoover, was aware of the rapes and facilitated them. Hoover, on multiple occasions, left her daughter alone with Crook so he could abuse her.
The 29-year-old man has been sentenced to 120 in prison by U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie M. Rose for committing the heinous acts which he often live-streamed for many to see, according to local media.
U.S. Attorney Marc Krickbaum explained that the pedophile took pictures and filmed videos of himself raping the young child — he sometimes kept the videos and other times they were posted on social media.
In the disturbing clips that Crook shared on various apps, he encouraged his followers to watch him perform the violent sex acts on the child.
The Bloomfield man was arrested in February 2018 after he was reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Back then, he appeared in court and pled guilty to four counts of sexual exploitation of a child.
At the time, he made a stomach-turning confession to authorities, “the rape happened less than 100 times.” At the age of 6, the child was finally removed from Crook’s house of horror in March of 2018.
Judge Rose threw the book at Crook, by saying his crimes were “horrific,” and his actions were “insidious and manipulative.”
Krickbaum added: “Any time a child is abused in Iowa, if we have photographs or videos of the abuse, the defendant can be prosecuted in federal court, and face decades, if not life, behind bars.”
He went on to say: “Steven Crook will spend the rest of his life in federal prison, where he belongs. We want to make sure that other defendants like him, who are a threat to our children, face the stiffest penalties federal law allows.”
In January 2019, Hoover was arrested and slapped with a long list of charges including 14 felony counts, seven counts of neglect of a dependent person and seven counts of child endangerment in this case.
