WICHITA, Kan. — A former model who kicked a Black toddler and uttered racial slurs at a Kansas grocery store was sentenced to 32 months in prison Thursday.
Trace Adam Riff, 33, pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated battery, disorderly conduct, unlawful abuse of toxic vapors and possession of methamphetamine in May 2019, The Wichita Eagle reported.
According to Lashantai Whitaker, Riff kicked her 1-year-old son in a Wichita grocery store on Dec. 27, 2018, as the boy’s sister was leading him through the store, KAKE-TV reported. The force of the kick caused the child to fall on the floor, and Riff began yelling obscenities and racial slurs, the television station reported.
An employee tackled Riff and other workers held him on the ground until police arrived.
The boy was not seriously hurt.
“Mr. Riff has a long history of declining mental health probably precipitated by extensive drug use,” Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said in May 2019. “So there is an option under the law to send someone to Larned (State Hospital) for the presentence investigation.”
Bennett told a judge Thursday that other rehabilitation options had been exhausted, the Eagle reported.
Riff’s modeling career allowed him to travel worldwide to international runway shows and he was the subject of several magazine photo spreads, according to the newspaper.
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