Montana Mom Outraged As Daughter’s Rapist Gets Online Support, Light Sentence

A Montana mother is outraged at the light sentence her 12-year-old daughter’s rapist received. Making matters worse, the girl’s rapist received online support, and supporters of the rapist are blaming the girl’s daughter for the rape.

As KRTV-TV (Great Falls) reports, David Dey, 22, took a plea deal in which he admitted to having sex with the Miles City woman’s 12-year-old daughter on multiple occasions.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of intercourse without consent and one count of sexual abuse of a child, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Fifteen of those years were suspended, and Dey was given credit for the eight months he’s already served in jail. That means that, with good behavior, Dey could be up for parole again in as little as a year and a half.

For the victim’s mother, that’s not enough.

“He took her away not only her virginity, he took everything away from her. All I heard at sentencing was how he had such a hard life and rehabilitating him. But I didn’t hear anything about rehabilitating my daughter.”

Making matters worse, for both the victim and the mother, is that the daughter is now being dragged through the mud as Dey’s supporters rally around him.

“People are going online, calling her a lying whore. We’ve received death threats.”

Since the story of Dey’s alleged crimes against the girl first broke, Dey’s supporters have come to his defense. Facebook pages in Dey’s support, as well as online petitions — such as a now-removed petition on Change.org — sprung up (and were quickly taken down).

Some have argued that the girl seduced Dey. Others claim that Dey is a mentally-disabled individual who didn’t fully understand what he was doing — a claim with which Custer County attorney Wyatt Glade tends to agree.

“[Psychiatric professionals] testified that Dey was a lower-functioning individual. The judge received a psychological report that said Dey had cognitive limitations… A 10-year sentence is not light.”

At the time of his crimes — around June and July, 2015 — David Dey, then-21, was living with his parents and a 13-year-old girl, a relative, in Miles City, Montana, a town of 8,400 people, about 150 miles from Billings.

Meso-cyclone warning here in Miles City, #Montana. That sounds ominous. pic.twitter.com/WhbX38nswH

— Joe Arvai (@DecisionLab) June 10, 2016

According to a KTVQ-TV report from the time, the 13-year-old relative was friends with the 12-year-old girl who would later be victimized by Dey. They met in June, 2015, and by July, 2015, they were having sex with each other.

Prosecutors say that Dey and the girl had sex at his home, parks, and various vacant places around the community. Dey also asked the girl to send him nude photos of herself to his phone, and sent nude photos of himself to her.

Dey maintained that their relationship was consensual, believing that he and the girl were having a normal boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, although in Montana a 12-year-old can’t legally consent to sex.

The girl would later claim otherwise; she told police that she had told Dey that she was afraid, but that Dey was controlling her.

The girl’s mother became suspicious when she and here daughter were in Billings and the girl asked about buying gifts for Dey. The mother investigated further and found written correspondence between the two, leading her to conclude that they were having sex. She contacted the police.

Dey’s parents, meanwhile, were allegedly aware of the relationship, although they encouraged Dey to end it. They did not, however alert the police.

Do you believe that the 12-year-old Montana girl’s rapist got too light of a sentence?

[Image via Shutterstock/ChameleonsEye]