Beau Biden prosecuted one of the worst pedophiles in American history
By Justin Wm. Moyer June 1 at 3:00 AM WashPost
Warning: This article contains graphic depictions of sexual abuse.
In 2010, just five years before his death this weekend, the time was never better for Beau Biden to make a run for the U.S. Senate. He was performing well as Delaware’s attorney general; his father, Joe Biden, had left Capitol Hill in 2008 to join President Obama in the White House; a family friend had been keeping the seat warm for the young man.
But Biden declined.
“I have a duty to fulfill as attorney general, and the immediate need to focus on a case of great consequence,” Biden, then 40, said in a statement at the time. “And that is what I must do … Therefore I cannot and will not run for the United States Senate.”
It was easy to read this as politics. In 2010, the Democrats were still struggling to regain their footing after the hard fight to pass the Affordable Care Act; in Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown had just won the seat Ted Kennedy occupied for decades. Maybe Biden would be better off running for governor in 2012. And it turned out his health problems weren’t far away.
But “the case of great consequence” Biden stuck around to prosecute involved Earl Bradley — a pediatrician who perpetrated what some called “one of the worst cases of child sexual abuse” by sexually assaulting dozens, if not hundreds, of his young patients.
The numbers were staggering. More than 1,400 patients filed claims against Bradley, who was convicted in 2011 of raping or abusing 86 patients over 11 years. The average age of the victims was just three years old, and one alleged victim was just three months old.
(More here.)
Warning: This article contains graphic depictions of sexual abuse.
In 2010, just five years before his death this weekend, the time was never better for Beau Biden to make a run for the U.S. Senate. He was performing well as Delaware’s attorney general; his father, Joe Biden, had left Capitol Hill in 2008 to join President Obama in the White House; a family friend had been keeping the seat warm for the young man.
But Biden declined.
“I have a duty to fulfill as attorney general, and the immediate need to focus on a case of great consequence,” Biden, then 40, said in a statement at the time. “And that is what I must do … Therefore I cannot and will not run for the United States Senate.”
It was easy to read this as politics. In 2010, the Democrats were still struggling to regain their footing after the hard fight to pass the Affordable Care Act; in Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown had just won the seat Ted Kennedy occupied for decades. Maybe Biden would be better off running for governor in 2012. And it turned out his health problems weren’t far away.
But “the case of great consequence” Biden stuck around to prosecute involved Earl Bradley — a pediatrician who perpetrated what some called “one of the worst cases of child sexual abuse” by sexually assaulting dozens, if not hundreds, of his young patients.
The numbers were staggering. More than 1,400 patients filed claims against Bradley, who was convicted in 2011 of raping or abusing 86 patients over 11 years. The average age of the victims was just three years old, and one alleged victim was just three months old.
(More here.)
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