At first, I thought this guy must have ‘merely’ committed statutory rape (hence the relatively light sentence) however:
“He threatened me,” the girl said of the rape. “He told me that he could make my life upside down, and I wouldn’t have anybody and he would pin it all on me. So I was scared.”
3 years for forcible under-age rape is an abomination.
Not the way I read it.
He served NO time in prison - it was all probation.
“The victim’s rapist, who was not identified by Fox 25, was sentenced by Norfolk Superior Court Judge Thomas McGuire to 16 years probation in 2011.
Prosecutors were seeking three to five years in prison for the man, who pleaded guilty to four counts of statutory rape of a child, Fox 25 said.”
He got probation. The court ruling is consistant with a situation where there was some sort of consensual relationship and the rape was statutory rather than forced, although the girl is quoted in the story as being coerced into sex.
I like that the girl kept her child, the child of a rape. I like that the man was put in a position where he would have to pay child support. Unfortunately, that opened the door for the problems that are being addressed in this article.
Her lawayer is trying to get the “child support” payments changed by court order to “restitution”, so that he will no longer have parental rights. That is how it should have been done in the first place.
The article does not indicate that the girl or the parents were upset with the probation ruling, in this article they are upset that he might get visitation rights. They may also have been upset with the court outcome — just the story doesn’t say that.