A 32-year-old former school resource officer in Kansas will spend his life behind bars for repeatedly raping and abusing a child younger than 14.
Mark Scheetz of Norton was sentenced to life in prison last week in Norton County District Court, the Kansas Attorney General’s Office said in a press release.
In April, he was found guilty of two counts of aggravated criminal sodomy with a child younger than 14, two counts of rape, sexual exploitation of a child and intimidating a witness. There is a possibility of parole, but he needs to serve 50 years, according to KMBC News.
In 2019, he was arrested by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, which said that he was involved in sex acts with a minor, sent lewd photos to minors and used electronic devices to ask for sex with minors from 2013 to 2015.
The charges were first filed in April 2019 when Scheetz was working with the Kansas City, Kansas, School District. Scheetz, who worked for the Sheridan County Sheriff's Office from 2016 to 2018, was initially sent on administrative leave.
In another sex crime incident, a man recently pleaded guilty to rape and sexual imposition of a minor. Larry Reed Jr. pleaded guilty to three counts of “committing rape by force or threat of force on a minor child victim” and one count of “sexual imposition on a minor child victim," said Lawrence County Prosecutor Brigham M. Anderson, reported WOWK-TV.
The prosecutor said that Reed was sentenced to 30 to 35 years and was ordered to register as a Tier III sex offender for the remaining part of his life. Reed was held in August 2020 after a parent reported he had allegedly touched a female juvenile inappropriately and had allegedly sexually abused another female juvenile at his house.
The law enforcement said that one of the juveniles told investigators that she had been touched inappropriately on one occasion while the other juvenile shared numerous instances of alleged sexual conduct that went on for several years. Back then, Reed was working as a school bus driver for the Rock Hill School District.
The charges and allegations were not linked to the school, said authorities.
