A 39-year-old man was sentenced on Monday for raping a 14-year-old boy in a church parking lot.
District Judge Stevan Thompson sentenced Ryan Cook to a minimum of 8 years and a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Cook will also have to register as a sex offender and pay fines and costs, as well as a civil penalty fine of at least $5,000, and the victim will be subject to a no-contact order for the next twenty years.
Cook initially pleaded not guilty to felony lewd conduct with a minor under 16 and felony enticing children over the internet.
On September 3, he was charged with felony transference of body fluids containing HIV, to which he pled not guilty.
Cook entered into a plea agreement on February 4, agreeing to plead guilty to felony indecent conduct with a minor in exchange for the prosecution dropping the remaining counts.
Sentencing
During sentencing, Cook’s defense attorney, Douglas Knutson, argued that the investigation had not shown that Cook transmitted HIV to the victim and requested that Thompson remove the allegation from a victim impact letter received from the victim’s family. Thompson denied the request.
“The parties have exchanged some scientific evidence, which seems to be in tension with each other,” said Knutson. “I think that there is an ability to be more certain on that, but I don’t believe that burden has been met.”
Knutson suggested retained jurisdiction, or a rider, stating that his client and the victim met and chatted for “weeks” on an adult dating website, where users must certify they are over the age of 18 before chatting with others.
“For those weeks, my client had every reason to anticipate the person that he was communicating with was 18 years or older,” said Knutson. “He should’ve demanded proof of his age…he did not do that, judge.”
Jefferson County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Scott Peterson urged that Cook should be sentenced to a minimum of five and a maximum of 25 years in prison, citing investigators’ findings that Cook regards himself as the victim.
“It is concerning to the state that we do have an individual that his main attraction is young boys,” said Peterson. “He sees himself as a victim, and so there’s some indication that treatment is going to be more difficult in the community.”
Cook gave a statement to the court before the ruling, apologizing for not determining the victim’s exact age and for the harm he caused to others affected by his actions.
“I’m really sorry. I was under an impression, and I went with that impression, and I should’ve done more on my part to find out before we met,” said Cook. “I am extremely sorry for the circumstances and for the victim and the suffering he has to go through.”
Thompson then addressed Cook, calling him a groomer and questioning Cook’s claim that he was unaware the victim was under the age of 18.
“In my opinion, there was a grooming here. You had to have some kind of inclination that you were dealing with somebody under 18,” said Thompson. “Your continued contact with this person and the arrangements being made is nothing less than grooming, and you can try to justify it all you want, but ‘somehow I didn’t know he was 14’, I’m just not buying into that.”
Thompson indicated that, owing to the gravity of the situation and his commitment to dissuade not only Cook but also others from committing these crimes, he would sentence him to longer prison time than the plea agreement stipulated.
“At the end of the day, I’m just not satisfied that a minimum five-year term is the proper message,” said Thompson. “These cases are not easy for anybody.”
