Man Who Tried to Rape 7-Year-Old Agrees to Castration

A Louisiana man who admitted he tried to rape a young child has agreed to be physically and chemically castrated. KPLC reports that 37-year-old Thomas Allen McCartney acquiesced to the procedure as part of a plea deal, which also includes his acceptance of a 40-year sentence in state prison, according to the Vernon Parish District Attorney's Office. McCartney, who pleaded guilty to first-degree rape of a child under the age of 13, had been arrested in 2023 after authorities say he was found sexually abusing a 7-year-old girl. The New York Post cites a previous KPLC report that the girl's mother caught McCartney in the act of abusing her child, after which he fled to Texas, where he was eventually found and arrested at a Houston hotel.

This isn't McCartney's first brush with the law: The news outlet reports that in 2006, he was arrested on one count of felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile, and four years later on two counts of aggravated rape of a 12-year-old. He was convicted of attempted aggravated rape in 2011 and is now considered a Tier III sex offender in Louisiana, the most serious level. In a statement, Vernon Parish District Attorney Terry Lambright thanked the victim and her family "for their cooperation and assistance in seeing this process through," per KTBS. "This is a horrific crime that never should have happened," Lambright said in his statement. "Thomas McCartney is a predator that needs to be locked away from others in our community."