An upstate man, once held up as the poster boy for victimized children, will spend at least 25 years behind bars for raping a 10-year-old girl.
Adam Croote, 23, pleaded guilty to the heinous sex attack and attempted murder in March, before he was sentenced to 25 years to life by Albany County Judge Stephen Herrick on Friday.
Croote raped the Berne, NY, girl he was babysitting and tried to snap the little girl’s neck.
It was the latest sad, twisted chapter in Croote’s troubled life.
He was just 2 when his dad killed his pregnant mom, leaving him alone for hours with his dead mother in Hinesville, Ga.
During the ensuing custody battle, Croote was kidnaped by his maternal grandparents. They were found three years later living under assumed names.
Croote and his paternal grandmother were guests of President Clinton when he signed a Jan. 19, 1996 order, directing federal buildings to post fliers of missing children.
The 7-year-old stood just few feet away from the president’s left elbow, as Clinton made the executive order.
The boy’s teen years were marked with more instability, shuttled between group homes. At 17, he raped a female employee of a home for troubled youngsters in Wendell, Mass.
Croote was a registered sex offender and had been living near Albany for five years before this latest attack.
The 10-year-old victim’s dad knew Croote’s troubled past, but still let him look after the girl this past June when he brutally assaulted her.
“Since he was a sex offender, we knew who he was, what he was, where he was,” Albany County Under Sheriff Craig Apple.
“We just prayed that he didn’t re-offend. There is only so much we can do.”
With Post Wire Services