School bus driver who raped 14-year-old will not serve jail time

Shane Piche, 26, assigned lowest-level status on New York’s sex offender register

Shane Piche, 26, pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl earlier this year (Watertown Police Department)

A former school bus driver who pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl will not receive any prison time, according to the sentence handed down by a New York State Supreme Court judge.

Shane Piche, 26, was sentenced to 10 years of probation on probation and was assigned the lowest-level status on New York’s sex offender register, according to an official with the state Supreme Court in Jefferson County.

The Level 1 status is reserved for offenders with a low risk of committing another similar crime, and means that his future addresses will not be made public.

In explaining the sentence, Justice James P McClusky said that Piche had no prior arrests and that only one victim had been involved, according to the Watertown Daily Times newspaper.

Piche was ordered not to be left alone with anyone younger than 17, and to pay $1,425 in court and other fees, according to the court official. Prosecutors had initially charged him with second-degree rape, as well as first-degree unlawfully dealing with a child and endangering the welfare of a child.

The sentence has led to angry calls to the judge’s chambers from people outraged by the sentence, which was shared widely on social media and has generated thousands of signatures on an online petition calling for the judges to be ousted.

The case in Watertown, about 70 miles north of Syracuse, also has reignited a fresh debate over the severity of punishments handed down to sex offenders.

In 2016, former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner was sentenced to six months in prison after having sexually assaulted an unconscious woman. The furore surrounding his case prompted nationwide demands for the resignation of the sentencing judge.

Last year, a doctor in Houston, Shafeeq Sheikh, was given 10 years of probation after raping a patient.

Susan Estrich, a professor at the University of Southern California’s law school, called it “shocking” that Piche was allowed to plead guilty to what she said were “watered-down” third-degree rape charges.

“It’s outrageous,” she said. “This is back to the future. This is what we’ve been fighting against for 30 years.”

She said the plea agreement effectively blamed the 14-year-old victim. “This is the beginning of a backlash in the courts – leaning over backward to protect men,” Ms Estrich said.

Hours after Piche’s sentencing, a petition was launched on MoveOn.org to remove Mr McClusky from the bench. The judge was elected in 2011 to a 14-year term on the Supreme Court.

“Remove him from his position immediately for his blatant disregard for survivors of sexual assault,” reads the petition that by Tuesday had gathered more than 20,000 signatures.

Prosecutors had requested that Piche be assigned a Level 2 sex-offender designation, which would have meant that his future addresses would have been published on the state’s sex offender registry.

The victim’s mother had said she had been hoping that Piche would receive prison time.

“He took something from my daughter she will never get back and has caused her to struggle with depression and anxiety,” the mother said in a statement obtained by WWNY, a Watertown-area television station.

In February, when Piche entered the guilty plea, the girl’s mother told the station that Piche “bought her daughter gifts and invited her and other minors to his home, where he gave them alcohol.”

Piche’s lawyer, Eric T Swartz, could not be reached Tuesday for comment, but he told WWNY that the sentence was just.

“He’ll be a felon for the rest of his life. He’s on the sex offender registry for a long time,” Mr Swartz told WWNY. “Maybe not the rest of his life because of the level, but this isn’t something that didn’t cause him pain and this isn’t something that didn’t have consequences.”

The maximum sentence for third-degree rape is 16 months to four years in prison, according to a spokesman for the Unified Court System, Lucian Chalfen. But he said Mr McClusky was “well within” the sentencing range for the negotiated plea.

“The defendant is now a convicted sex offender who will spend the next decade on a very onerous and intrusive sex offender probation and have to register as a sex offender,” Mr Chalfen said in a statement.

He said the majority of the “vitriolic calls” to Mr McClusky have come from out-of-state callers who “know nothing about the facts and circumstances of the case, thanks to social media.”

“Judicial independence is a cornerstone of our society,” Mr Chalfen said. “Removing judges for handing down sentences that some may disagree with cuts both ways, leaving us with no process of accountability.”

New York Times