A Texas judge has sentenced a confessed rapist to just five years’ probation, implying his 14-year-old victim was promiscuous and “wasn’t the victim she claimed to be.”
Sir Young, 20, pleaded guilty to raping the girl at Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas when he was 18, even as she told him “no” and “stop,” according to the Dallas Morning News.
But State District Judge Jeanine Howard stunned many when she opted for probation, which will include 45 days in jail, and also exempted him from standard sex-offender restrictions, such as staying away from children, attending sex-offender treatment, undergoing a sex-offender evaluation or refraining from watching pornography.
Howard told the News she made her decision partly because medical records showed the victim had had three sexual partners and had given birth to a baby — both claims the girl has denied.
“She wasn’t the victim she claimed to be,” Howard said. “He is not your typical sex offender.
“There are rape cases that deserve life. There are rape cases that deserve 20 years. Every now and then you have one of those that deserve probation. This is one of those and I stand by it.”
According to WFAA, citing Young’s handwritten police confession, he and the victim were in the music practice room when they started kissing. He said he tried to put his hands down her pants, but she said “no twice” so he stopped.
He wrote that they began to kiss again, and this time he took off his pants and hers.
“She kept saying, ‘No and stop,’ but I just didn’t stop,” he wrote.
After the attack, he said she told him, “‘Oh God, why did you do this?’ I couldn’t even answer. I just said sorry numerous times because I just couldn’t believe I had did that.”
The victim, now 17, said the sentence made her regret coming forward.
“I did what I was supposed to do. I went to the law about this situation,” she said. “(But the sentence) says everything I went through was for nothing.
“It would have been better for me not to say anything.”
Howard also came under fire for ordering Young to serve community service at a rape crisis center — a requirement that advocates for sexual assault victims said was unheard of.
“I’m sure she (Howard) probably thought that it was his way of giving back perhaps,” said Bobbie Villareal, executive director of the Dallas Area Rape Crisis Center. “But it’s just not an appropriate place for him to do his community supervision.”
Villareal also criticized Young’s “lenient” sentence, which she said would act as a “deterrent” for other survivors of sexual assault.
“It sends a devastating message to survivors of sexual assault. That victim’s family definitely didn’t feel like there was justice for her and for other survivors of sexual assault.”
This article originally appeared on News.com.au.