Arapahoe District Judge F. Stephen Collins on Monday sentenced a registered sex offender to 50 years in prison for the “despicable” crime of bringing underage boys from California to Colorado so he could have sex with them.
Sean Crumpler, 50, pleaded guilty March 6 to three counts of human trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude, a Class 2 felony.
Sean Crumpler
Crumpler was arrested in August 2015 after a family member of one of the boys contacted the police in California to say the 16-year-old was being exploited. The tip was passed along to the FBI Safe Streets Task Force Innocence Lost Task Force.
The investigation revealed Crumpler and his associates intentionally recruited and then transported underage at-risk runaway boys from California to Aurora, where Crumpler had a job as a computer engineering contractor.
Crumpler rented a house in Aurora, where 10 to 15 men and boys lived together. Crumpler paid all the bills, including housing and food. He gave the boys marijuana, alcohol, phones and other items, and in return required the boys have sex with him and others in the house.
Two men who were victimized by Crumpler as teenagers helped him recruit later victims. They previously pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor and each was sentenced to six years probation. One of the accomplices estimated that 150 to 175 boys were victimized over a two-year period.
“The number of young men and boys the defendant victimized over the years is staggering,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Cara Morlan told the court in asking for the lengthy sentence. “This defendant intentionally targets our most at-risk youth, and he has no regret and would not change anything if he had to do it over again … The only thing appropriate is a punishment so long that he will never again have access to children.”
She added: “The defendant has tried to make this a case about an alternative lifestyle. This sentence serves as a notice to all offenders — wealthy or poor, gay or straight, male or female — it does not matter. If you target children, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Judge Collins agreed.
Crumpler “just doesn’t seem to recognize the harm that he is causing to these young people. He views himself as an altruist when in reality he is preying on some of the most vulnerable people in our society. …
“I find that these are very serious offenses and they deserve very serious punishment,” Collins added. “We do not allow anyone to prey upon children.”
District Attorney George Brauchler praised the outcome.
“It is because of predators like Crumpler, that we invest in strong prisons. There is no place in our community for such a predator,” he said. “We put resources into our human trafficking prosecution team to keep vulnerable children safe from monsters like this one.”
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