Who could have seen that coming? Not the judges presiding over the case against Joseph H. Gardner. Prosecutors wanted Gardner’s bail to be set at $200,000 but Plymouth District Court Judge Thomas F. Brownell decided to set bail at a measly $10,000. Gardner’s bail was apparently not even revoked when he got caught driving drunk.

From Boston.com:

PLYMOUTH – A man arraigned yesterday on charges that he sexually assaulted a 3-year-old girl in Kingston on Friday had been charged this summer with raping another child but was free on bail.

Joseph H. Gardner, 26, of Kingston, pleaded not guilty yesterday in Plymouth District Court to a charge that he raped the daughter of a woman he was dating.

In the earlier alleged rape, the self-described construction worker was freed on $10,000 cash bail – far less than Plymouth prosecutors sought – on Sept. 15. He had been charged with breaking into the Kingston house of a distant relative and raping a 6-year-old girl.

“I always wonder why we let people out who are charged with such crimes,’’ Kingston Police Chief Joseph Rebello said angrily to reporters outside the courtroom. “Obviously, someone who has this type of background is no one that can be rehabilitated, and letting him loose in society only means we are going to have further victims.’’

The mother of the first alleged victim attended the arraignment and also assailed the decision to release Gardner.

“I don’t understand why he is still out,’’ she said, referring to the bail granted after the first arrest. “I think the courts should make sure he goes away and is not allowed to be around kids.’’

I don’t understand why he was out either. Judges in Massachusetts are supposed to take into account the dangerousness of the indivdual in bail hearings, and Gardner is clearly dangerous. But this process fell apart as usual when Liberal judges promoted hug-a-thug justice over public safety:

Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said Gardner faced “heinous allegations’’ in the first arrest and that prosecutors were disappointed that Plymouth District Court Judge Thomas F. Brownell set bail at $10,000 instead of the $200,000 they originally sought.

After Gardner’s indictment, the first rape case was transferred to Superior Court, where prosecutors again requested high bail – $150,000. But Judge Joseph M. Walker III kept bail at $10,000, and Gardner remained free.

Depending on the circumstances, Cruz said, judges typically impose a range of bail amounts in sexual assault cases. In some instances, he said, judges have released rape suspects on their own recognizance.

Judges are typically barred from speaking about pending cases.

Jack M. Atwood, a Plymouth lawyer whom McColloch works for and who represented Gardner on the first rape charges, did not return phone calls.

John G. Swomley, a Boston defense lawyer who has represented many individuals accused of sex offenses, said the $10,000 bail struck him as low.

“If the allegations are credible and there doesn’t appear to be something that wouldn’t be suggestive of fabrication, it would normally be a much higher bail,’’ said Swomley, who is not involved in Gardner’s cases.

Still, he said, the judges might have considered that Gardner had never been accused of a sex offense before August, according to public records.

Oh. So it was his first time raping a child. That explains everything. It’s not like the man traumatized a six-year-old in front of another child who testified about the assault:

In the first case, Gardner allegedly broke into a Kingston home through a bathroom window, according to the mother of the alleged victim, whose name the Globe is withholding because it would indirectly identify her daughter, the victim of a sexual assault. The Globe does not identify sexual assault victims.

Investigators gathered fingerprints and other forensic evidence that tied Gardner to the crime, she said.

According to a Kingston police report filed in court, the first alleged victim was staying at a woman relative’s house with another female relative, age 10, on Aug. 22. Between 4 and 6 a.m., the woman heard the 6-year-old crying and the 10-year-old girl yelling but dismissed it as a routine disturbance.

But around 6 a.m., the woman got up and was told by the 6-year-old that “a man was in her room . . . and was hurting her,’’ said the police report. A container of baby powder was on the floor and the powder was on the bed.

The woman discovered Gardner – to whom she was related by a former spouse – just steps away from the girls’ bedroom. Gardner said he was there to pick up garbage and take it to the dump, but the woman told police Gardner did not come through the front door and was not supposed to be in her home.

Gardner, who had baby powder on him, was ordered to leave but returned later with his father, David Gardner, according to the police report. Joseph Gardner “was very upset’’ and tearfully denied harming the 6-year-old girl, according to the report.

Yeah. Sounds like he deserved a higher bail. The victim was claimed to have “recanted” by a nurse but in reality the kid just wanted to get out of the hospital and the testimony of the ten-year-old and the forensics pretty much nailed Gardner. The ten-year-old is said to have given a “graphic” account of the crime.

And of course he has an excuse for the second assault. He was dating some tramp who tried to shake him down. Mother of the year slept over Gardner’s home, where the Massachusetts authorities have allowed him to keep custody of his four-year-old, sans kids the night before the assault then showed up the next day with her kids. I’m betting it was a set up, but Gardner isn’t innocent.

The events leading up to the second alleged rape began when Gardner started dating a woman with whom he had gone to high school, prosecutors said. The woman brought her two children, a 3-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy, to spend the night at Gardner’s home on Friday, prosecutors said.

Gardner lives on Summer Street with his 4-year-old son. The woman had slept there without her children the night before, court records show.

The woman told investigators that she heard her 3-year-old crying in the middle of the night but dismissed it because the girl often got upset while sleeping.

The next morning the woman noticed that her daughter was no longer wearing a pull-up diaper and she asked her about it. The girl then allegedly told her mother that Gardner sexually assaulted her and told the girl he would kill her father if she told anyone, according to police. The woman took her daughter to Jordan Hospital, which notified police.

When police arrested Gardner at home on Sunday morning, he said the woman’s allegations were untrue. “She accused me of this yesterday and wanted money so I gave it to her,’’ Gardner told police, according to court records. “She must have heard about my other case.’’

Disgusting. A man bails out of jail for child rape and she shows up with new victims. Someone needs to help the children of Massachusetts because it seems like no adult there is willing to keep them safe.

WCVB has more and a video report.

h/t Dreamin’ Demon