Readers' forum: Criminal not the victim

The story "Series of failures led man to crime" (June 8) should win a prize for the best portrayal of a criminal as a victim.

I was appalled at the portrayal of Mr. Kapp as a victim of his own actions. Mr. Kapp's girlfriend didn't just "become pregnant"; she conceived a child just as every other child is conceived. It wasn't her fault he was ineligible to serve a mission for the LDS Church, it was the result of his choices and action. His choices and actions resulted in his dismissal from Ricks College.

He did not "borrow" money from Don Julio Foods. He stole, robbed and embezzled the money, repeatedly. And he stole big-time from C.R. England. Choices and actions again.

He lied to his family, his fellow parishioners and everyone else, assumed positions of trust and honor to which he was not deserving and at 36 years of age seems to have demonstrated a pattern or lifestyle of a sociopath-thief.

If the story was written to create sympathy for Mr. Kapp, it failed. If it was written to inform, it failed because the facts were clouded by the portrayal of the criminal as a victim of his own actions.

The real victims are two women who bore children by a man who will not be able to provide, the two employers who will eat the losses, and last but not least the Deseret News who published this sad spectacle of reporting.

David R. Shorten

Salt Lake City