A 35-year old man from North Andover, MA pleaded guilty in regards to accusations that he tortured and sexually abused his two stepdaughters over a five-year period because their father is Dominican, according to the Essex County District Attorney’s office.
Justin Ladd systematically abused his stepdaughters, now 15 and 17, by demanding they dance like monkeys, throwing them against a wall, hitting them with a hammer, twisting their tongues with pliers, and repeatedly exposing his genitals.
Ladd allegedly told the girls that they would be raped and killed by the Hell’s Angels if they disclosed the abuse to anyone. An ardent White Nationalist, Ladd painted Nazi symbols throughout the walls of the family’s home and ordered his stepdaughters and their mother to give him the Nazi salute.
“While there is no amount of jail time that would reflect the utter depravity of the defendants’ conduct, this agreement spares the victims the additional trauma of a trial,” Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said in a statement. “As for these young women, who are true survivors, I hope that hearing these people who inflicted such horror admit their guilty, helps them to understand that what happened to them was not their fault.”
Ladd pleaded guilty to 32 separate counts, including indecent assault and battery, open/gross lewdness, racially motivated assaults, and assault & battery by means of a dangerous weapon.
Disgustingly, the victims mother, Anne Ladd, was proven to have witnessed at least a portion of the abuse. She plead guilty on two counts of reckless endangerment of a child as well as two counts of permitting bodily injury to a child in her care and custody.
Justin Ladd was sentenced to 4-5 years in prison, and while Injustice is glad to see vermin like this behind bars, we are also left wondering how this fits into the narrative of our unequal sentencing laws. On average, black men are sentenced to 20% longer prison terms than white people convicted of a similar crime, which leaves us wondering: Given the gravity of the crimes committed, and the indelible psychological trauma he systematically subjected to female minors towards, is 4-5 years in prison a strict enough sentence?
