RANCHO PALOS VERDES : Molester of Teen-Agers Draws an 18-Year Term
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A Rancho Palos Verdes man was sentenced on Wednesday to 18 years in prison for befriending teen-age boys, providing them with drugs and video games and then molesting them.
Russell A. Kraus, 28, pleaded guilty last February to 40 counts of sexual abuse and 32 of giving drugs to minors.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Fisch said Kraus used marijuana, LSD and Nintendo games to lure the youths, ages 12 to 15, to an apartment he maintained in Van Nuys in 1991 before returning to his parents’ home in Rancho Palos Verdes.
Most of the 14 boys molested by Kraus “were in a drugged state at the time he abused them,” Fisch said. Police raided the apartment after one of the boys told authorities about the molestations, she said.
Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Leon Kaplan, who could have sentenced Kraus to 92 years in prison, also placed him on probation for 12 years after his release from prison and ordered him to enroll in a residential treatment program for sexual offenders.
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