“You will never be in a position to harm a child again,’’ Carpenter told Bradley, saying the serial pedophile had violated the trust of his patients and their families, the morals of the southern Delaware community of Lewes, and his oath as a medical professional to do no harm to his patients.
“You have severely violated that trust, and you have shamed your profession,’’ Carpenter told Bradley.
Before sentencing Bradley, the judge addressed the families of his victims, some of whom have struggled with broken relationships stemming from their ordeal and guilt for allowing the doctor to be alone with their children.
“You must realize that you are not at fault and that you and your children have done nothing wrong,’’ Carpenter said.
Some women in the courtroom wept as prosecutor Paula Ryan recounted Bradley’s crimes and asked Carpenter to impose the maximum sentences, saying “every minute of every day should be as difficult as possible for Earl Bradley to endure.’’
“Earl Bradley committed unspeakable acts upon those who could not speak for themselves,’’ she added. “ … To make indescribable and horrific matters even worse, he videotaped these incidents for his own perverse pleasure, endlessly editing and copying, permanently memorializing his attacks on these children for his own twisted collection.’’
Public defender Dean Johnson did not address the court, and Bradley chose not to speak.
“It’s the sentence that was expected,’’ Johnson said afterward, adding that Bradley “is putting great stock’’ in the defense’s appeal of a ruling by Carpenter’s allowing the videotapes of Bradley’s sexual assaults to be admitted as evidence.
After escaping prosecution following two previous police investigations of complaints of improper contact with patients, Bradley was arrested in December 2009 after a 2-year-old girl complained to her mother after an office visit that the doctor had hurt her. The child had made a similar complaint to her father after an earlier visit.
Attorney General Beau Biden, who cited his desire to see Bradley’s prosecution through its conclusion as the reason he opted not to run for the US Senate seat once held by his father, said the state had achieved its first objective of ensuring that Bradley will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Biden said the second objective is helping the families of Bradley’s victims cope with what has happened to them.
“That’s a job that never ends,’’ he said.
