So Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson, after taking his time [0] and waiting nearly a year before filing any charges at all against child predator Eric Feltner, has now allowed Feltner to cop a plea to a charge that does not even reflect the heinous nature of his crimes.  Though initially charged with two counts of providing pornography to a minor, Feltner today pled to the far more innocuous sounding charge of "display of sexual materials." [1]  Here's what that statute [2] says:

Public display of explicit sexual material.

573.060. 1. A person commits the crime of public display of explicit sexual material if he knowingly:

(1) Displays publicly explicit sexual material; or

(2) Fails to take prompt action to remove such a display from property in his possession after learning of its existence.

2. Public display of explicit sexual material is a class A misdemeanor unless the person has pleaded guilty to or has been found guilty of an offense under this section committed at a different time, in which case it is a class D felony.

3. For purposes of this section, each day there is a violation of this section shall constitute a separate offense.

Doesn't really do justice to the acts in which Feltner engaged, does it?  Does that statute sound like the right offense for some creep who was trying to send sexually explicit and graphic messages to a 13 year old girl? 

Not to me.  In my view, it seems like just the thing that some pervert who doesn't want folks down the road to know that he's got a thing for little girls would love to be charged with.  Lucky for Feltner that, with Mark Richardson's help, he'll be able to arrange the record so that it's very hard to tell that he was pinched for an attempted sex crime against a child.  

Sickening.