FARGO - A Fargo woman says she learned this week that the man sentenced to 125 years for raping her daughter has been released in South Dakota.
Sandy Erickson said she received a letter from South Dakota officials saying David Sukup's conviction was overturned after a judge ruled he had an ineffective attorney.
Sukup, of Jamestown, was sentenced in 2004 on four counts of second-degree rape of a victim incapable of consent. Authorities said he took Erickson's 26-year-old daughter to Sioux Falls, S.D., in January 2004, and told authorities the two were in love and planned to marry. They were found after five days.
Sukup was released from the South Dakota State Penitentiary on July 15, penitentiary officials said. Erickson said she found out this week when she got a letter from prosecutors in Sioux Falls. She said she worries Sukup will harm someone else.
"It's a safety concern for everybody for all the other vulnerable adults or little girls out there," she said.
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Sukup now lives in Sioux Falls, and is complying with his sex offender registration requirements, police there say. Prosecutors said he had an earlier conviction for attempted rape in Nebraska and was paroled from that charge in February 2003.
Erickson said prosecutors told her a hearing is scheduled next month about whether to take the case to trial again.
Erickson and her daughter have spoken publicly with the media. The case led to the creation of a Fargo notification program for missing people with developmental disabilities, similar to the Amber Alert system for children.
